


Where the Shadow Ends

by thimbleful



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arya Stark/Original Woman Character, Complicated and Messy, Emotional Healing, F/M, Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Romance, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, Unhealthy At First
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 242,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21536362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleful/pseuds/thimbleful
Summary: For years Sansa has ruled the North, wisely, justly, capably--and utterly alone. Everyone tells her she needs an heir; all she wants is a family. But after everything she’s suffered, there’s only one man she trusts won’t use her for her claim. Only one she trusts with her body. Unfortunately, she trusts him in no other way--especially not with her heart.For years Jon’s hidden in the far north, choosing solitude over the people he loves, choosing self-exile as punishment rather than atoning. But then Tormund tires of his moping and drags Jon back to Winterfell where guilt and consequences and a tempting offer await him.A story in which Jon and Sansa reunite after five years and enter an arrangement despite having unresolved issues between them. Post canon. (Not an arranged marriage fic.)
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 4049
Kudos: 2622





	1. A Scroll Never Sent

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO! So... I have nothing to say for myself. I guess I needed to get this out of my system. I started writing this post s8, lost interest, regained my interest, lost it again, regained it, lather, rinse, repeat MANY MANY TIMES. And now apparently I'm saying heck it and posting that first chapter that's been gathering dust in google docs???
> 
> Warnings: in this fic, Sansa has a past love affair with the Prince of Dorne. It ended amicably. Jon's relationship with Dany was one-sided and traumatizing for Jon. Jon and Sansa both have trust issues in this and Jon struggles a lot with PTSD. There's lingering resentment and bitterness coming to the fore which means it takes a while for them to move out of a rather unhealthy dynamic. They do move out of it, though, and eventually find their very happy ending together where they are mutually in love and treat each other well. But before that happens this might be a pretty rough read. They don't always treat one another well and everything they experience is filtered through their own biases and issues. So somewhat unreliable narrators. Enjoy the pain!

Looking out the window at the stars twinkling above Moat Cailin, Drustan swirls the wine in his glass before turning around and breathing in deeply of its scent with a lazy smirk on his lips and a warmth in his eyes that no longer affect her. Her own eyes don’t linger at the sliver of chest framed by yellow silk nor at the way the belt hugs his slender waist and the robe falls from his narrow hips. They never do anymore--and yet she can’t help but bite her lip as old memories resurface, memories of _his_ teeth nipping at her lip one quiet summer night after too many boring meetings and too many glasses of wine. Nipping at her lip, the crook of her neck, the soft flesh of her thigh, sending sparks of pleasure straight to a part she’s neglected as of late.

No, _he_ doesn’t affect her any longer, but the memories…

It’s been too long since she was held.

Sansa crosses her legs and busies herself with a pear, cutting thin slices she eats delicately. 

Drustan always brings her fruit. Fruits and berries and nuts. He always brings her lemons, crates and crates of lemons. Some have already been turned into cakes she’ll eat tomorrow. 

Once upon a time they ate them in bed the morning after, sweaty and sated and bare. The love affair might’ve ended years ago, but the lemon cake habit stayed. Tomorrow she’ll roll bleary-eyed out of bed, head fuzzy from last night’s wine, and treat herself to both tart and sweet flavors before traveling back home. She’ll lean back in the carriage and remember sunny days when everyone she loved was alive and home with her. When a platter of lemon cakes was shared with many instead of devoured alone, one cake after another, until her lips are sugar-sticky and her belly so full and her heart so empty she feels sick.

“I heard Lord Ashford’s chasing after you,” Drustan says.

“Not for himself. For his son.”

“And?”

“No.”

Drustan hums and sits down in the chair opposite hers. “Cora is due in five months. Twins, the maester says. That leaves me with three. And you with, oh, what is it? Zero?” He shakes his head, tutting at her. “You’re running behind, Sansa.”

“I wasn’t aware of this being a competition.”

“It’s not. But the North does need an heir and you…” He sighs and, even though she keeps her eyes on the pear, she can feel him watching her. He’s quiet for a beat too long before the playful tone returns to his voice. “I seem to remember that you danced with one of his sons at my coronation feast. He was very dashing, no?”

“One should always beware of dashing men. They rarely make for good husbands.”

“Then get yourself an ugly man. I trust you’ll find plenty to choose from in this barbaric North of yours.”

Sansa purses her lips to hide a smile. “I’ve met all the men in the North--dashing and ugly and everything in between--and I’ve found none good enough to marry.”

“Well, you don’t need a husband. You only need a lover.”

“I haven’t found a good lover either.”

“You did.” He props a grape into his mouth and bites down on it. “A very good lover.”

“It bore no fruit.”

“No, it did not. We never had enough time together.”

“We live too far apart.”

“We were never meant to be,” he says in an airy tone, an echo of the platitude she offered the day she rejected his proposal.

Sansa gives him a soft smile--a true smile. She’s seen him with Cora, how his eyes shine whenever he looks upon her. Drustan might’ve loved Sansa once but ever since Cora gave him his first child, he’s seen none but her. And whatever romantic affection Sansa once felt for him mellowed into a comfortable fondness years ago. Now she considers him one of her closest friends. One of only two with whom she can speak openly about anything. One of only two who guard her secrets as well as she guards theirs.

“Have you changed your mind?" he says. "About wanting children. You once told me you wanted your whole castle full of little Starks. But, I suppose, desires change.”

Sansa shakes her head, staring at her thumb pushing the knife slowly through the fruit. A shudder travels through her and she lays the pear and the knife back on the tray, wipes pear juice off her fingers on a linen napkin.

“You know how careful I must be,” she says, quietly. “Especially now that Bran’s gone.”

“You’re a good judge of character, Sansa.”

“I’m not. I’m just as easily fooled as everyone else. The only reason why I’m not fooled as often is because I’m careful.”

_Paranoid._

She wets her dry mouth with wine.

“Perhaps you’re being… too careful? My daughters will need husbands one day. My sons will need wives. It would make me happy to see a match between our families. It would make _Westeros_ happy.”

Sansa nods slowly, sipping more wine. “I know my duty, Drustan. I’ll find someone.”

“Well,” he says, putting down his wine glass, “it’s getting late. I’ll have Athor pick up the documents tomorrow before I leave.” Drustan lays his hands on the armrests and begins to push himself to stand, but then his brown eyes flicker up to meet hers, the curls of his wild black hair hanging over his forehead in a way that reminds her of someone best forgotten, and he sinks back down. “There _is_ someone, isn’t there? Someone who doesn’t want power. Someone who would be gentle with you.” He taps his finger against the armrest and raises an eyebrow. “Someone who owes you.”

She huffs out a breath. “ _Owes_ me? Do you hear yourself? I can’t guilt him into giving me a child.”

“Children, marriages, they’re all arrangements. For highborns, for merchants, even for farmers. Your land neighbors my land. Let’s marry my son to your daughter and all that land will be theirs. It’s how our world is run. Everyone wants something, my sweet Sansa--even him--and he might be willing to enter an arrangement, no? You could ask him. From what you told me about--”

“I’ll find someone,” she says, firmly. “Sleep well, Drustan.”

He gives her an almost chiding look, but it's too full of fondness to offend, and when he passes her and lays a comforting hand on her shoulder, she leans her cheek against the back of his hand. Just for a moment.

No one ever really touches her anymore.

Then, after one last stroke of his thumb over the ball of her shoulder, he leaves her with nothing but paperwork for company. Wine glass in hand, she settles down at the desk and stares at the pages of the fat ledger while the letters double and blur. Parchment lies next to the ledger. Small, blank pieces of parchment cut to fit a raven’s leg. _You could ask him_. Her thumb finds her palm, rubs three times before she realizes the old habit resurfacing. She’s not that girl anymore. She’s a queen now and he is of her past. He made sure of it.

* * *

Morning fog clings to Moat Cailin. With a shiver, Sansa pulls her cloak tighter around her body as she watches the servants load the carriage with the goods Drustan brought her. His servants have already loaded his carriage with pelts and silver. Gifts not trading. Although they do trade. Ships sail frequently between White Harbor and Sunspear and any other ports. It’s one of the first things they did after Drustan became king, developing the ports, setting up trading routes, building more ships. The North might’ve lost people and wildlife in the war against the Night King, but they still had more trees than they could ever need.

He says goodbye with a kiss to her cheek. They never bow to one another, never use their titles unless in official settings, but everyone around them bows to the Queen in the North and the King of the Six Kingdoms. 

A fairly new title for him, still. New enough that she still jolts whenever his presence is announced and she turns around and finds a handsome man standing behind her rather than the being who looked like her baby brother.

Crimson and ocher leaves filled the trees around the still-empty King’s Landing last time she saw the Three-Eyed Raven. He waved her off for once, seated in his chair on the pier. Behind them rose a somewhat restored Red Keep and on the pebbled beach waited Brienne and Podrick and Davos, the Hand pin new upon his chest. For the first time since Bran returned home from beyond the Wall, Sansa saw a glimmer of his true self in those deep brown eyes. A warmth the Three-Eyed Raven didn’t possess.

“Goodbye, Sansa,” he said in a tone that she only recognized later meant he knew they’d never meet again.

She wishes he’d told her, but at least he said goodbye. No one else ever did.

It took her years to stop waiting for their return.

* * *

_You could ask him_. The words come to her at home, follow her around, whisper in her ear every time she sits down in her office. _You could ask him._

Yes, she could. But she won’t. He’ll never come at her invitation. A couple of years ago she even considered lying about Arya returning, just to see whether it would work. That scroll ended up crumpled and tossed into the hearth. He _would_ come. Sansa doesn’t need to send him a lie to know that. Arya was always his family; Sansa was always his obligation.

Certain days, certain moments, she felt as if she were more. That’s what she stupidly, drunkenly shared with Drustan once. How she felt as if she were appreciated. Loved. Loved in ways forbidden. Loved in ways she craved. But those moments were as true as the words on the scroll burned to ashes.

Once that thought made her cry; now it makes her feel nothing.

* * *

A leg swings from a fat branch, the foot wrapped in soft leather shoes. Sansa stops beneath the sturdy oak and smiles up at her guest who’s trimming the feather fletchings of freshly made arrows. She always does this, sneaking in on light feet and hiding in a tree or visiting the crypts while waiting for Sansa to find her. Can’t stand the crowd, she says, even though Winterfell rarely feels crowded to Sansa. The first time they met properly, rather than that brief introduction years and years ago, was the day after Sansa’s coronation. She’d sat alone by the heart-tree, hungover and feeling sorry for herself because she had everything she could ever wish for except the one thing she’d always wanted. And then, as if Sansa’s need for companionship had summoned her, someone showed up to swear her allegiance to the new Queen in the North. To become a friend, a confidant. 

“I’m sorry for taking so long,” Sansa says. “Lord Ashford just won’t give up.”

“Give me the word and I'll make him.” Meera slips her dagger into the sheath at her hip and puts the arrows into her quiver. “I don’t like the look of his son. I know a predator when I see one.”

“You sound like Arya.”

Meera drops down on the ground, graceful as a shadowcat. “No news, I assume.”

“Gendry saw her. Two months ago. I got a raven a few weeks back.”

“ _Saw_ her?”

“He didn’t elaborate, but from what I can tell they didn’t speak.”

“At least she’s alive. That's something, isn't it?"

Sansa breathes out in a defeated smile. “Would you like to go to the crypts?”

“I already visited Rickon. Lit a candle. I’d like to visit Bran.” Meera nods in the direction of the heart-tree whose red leaves shine like rubies among the summer-green foliage of oak, beech, and elm. “I have something to tell you. Both of you.”

They settle down among the gnarly roots of the heart-tree and Meera lays her hand against the face carved there and, leaning her head against the pale bark, closes her eyes. She claims she feels Bran’s presence, still, that some part of him lives on in the heart-trees, but Sansa never feels anything when she sits here. At least not anything but nostalgia and peace and comfort, but perhaps that is Bran in some way. The real Bran who Meera says died in a cave, a lifetime ago.

Meera curls her hand around her flat stomach, her soft smile telling Sansa the news wordlessly, and Sansa can’t help a pang of envy in her cold, hollow heart. But then Meera opens her eyes and the quiet happiness in them brings a soft smile to Sansa’s lips too, and for a moment they just sit there, sharing that happiness.

(The pang doesn’t go away, though; it never does.)

“If it’s a boy,” Meera says, “I’ll call him Wylis. I wanted Bran to know. I think he’d like it.” She strokes the bark one last time before settling in with her back against the trunk. “When he’s born I’d like you to legitimize him. Or her.”

“You’re not marrying the father?”

“Father wanted me to at first, but I want my children to be Reeds. I told him you legitimized Eddara Tallhart’s boy and a few other ones, and you’ll legitimize mine too. Isn’t that what you plan on doing yourself? Once you find a lover.”

“ _If_ I find a lover.”

“You could always come to the Neck. The men might not be fancy, but they’re reliable and tough and good hunters too. They’re good men.”

“So your father accepted?”

“He laughed and said you’ll change the world. That mothers will pass on the family name in a few generations’ time.”

Sansa smiles crookedly. “I like that.”

“So do I. Any man’s seed could be responsible for a babe growing in a woman’s womb. Women should pass on the name. It’s the only way to know.”

Sansa nods slowly. “Then men couldn’t come home with bastards who threatened the trueborn children’s claims. Bastards who make the wives worry about their children.”

Tiny twigs, green leaves, and fir needles cling to Meera’s dark curls. Dark curls framing expressive dark eyes that search Sansa’s for signs of a heartache that dulled years ago but never truly healed.

“Has he visited yet?”

“I don’t know why you keep asking. The answer is always the same.”

“You could ask him. To come home. He doesn’t even know about Bran. He should know about Bran. And what happened to Arya. I would’ve wanted to know.”

“He’s made his choice. They all did. I’m the last of the Starks.” 

And House Stark will end with her unless she acts. _You could ask him._ Sansa tightens her hands into fists and pushes down that little voice until it’s lost deep inside her.

Lost for a while but not smothered.

It keeps clawing its way back up to nag at her and twist her thoughts and bring life to the objects around her. The quill, the parchment, even the ravens whisper to her. _Write_. _You could ask him. Write._ So she does. Three little words: _Come home. - Sansa._ Just her name, plain and simple, following a plea or a command. However he’ll take it. She rolls up the scroll and carries it in the pocket of her dress for a week, taking it out in quiet moments and reading it through as if that would change anything. As if she’d find a better way of asking him to come home.

She wasn’t even thinking about him anymore. Hadn’t in years. Once time gave her perspective, she exorcised the echoes of him haunting the hallways and chambers of Winterfell, and moved on. But now… As if Drustan and Meera mentioning him wasn’t enough, Tormund sent a raven sharing the news about the arrival of his son, and inviting himself to Winterfell to celebrate. _He_ won’t join Tormund’s party, though. He never does. Still, Sansa couldn’t stop old daydreams from returning. Daydreams of a babe of her own with dark curls and dark eyes and his father’s smile.

She’ll exorcise those dreams too; she’s done it before and she can do it again. She doesn’t want him anymore. Not him nor his child.

_Come home. - Sansa._

She drops the scroll on her desk and rubs her temples. He’s better off where he is, anyway, and Sansa is better off doing what Meera did, and find herself a man with traits she’d like to see in her children. A good temperament. A caring nature. A sharp wit. Pleasant features. Dependability. Loyalty... 

Chuckling to herself at her impossible task, she pours herself a glass of wine and stares wistfully out the window. The North isn’t brimming with men. Most are too old or too young. Several houses are down to only daughters after the sons all fell in the wars. Perhaps Sansa should visit the Neck--or even take herself a wildling lover.

Her duties rarely take her to the trading post Castle Black has become, but she knows it’s always full of wildlings bartering with Northmen and each other. Some of them are even handsome beneath the dirt and bushy beards. She can throw one in a tub and scrub him clean before inviting him into her bed. From Tormund’s stories she knows that wildling men enjoy pleasuring their women. From Drustan she knows it can be. Pleasure. She knows it can be good.

Sansa tosses the scroll in the hearth, but as the flames caress the parchment she imagines a stranger’s hands caressing her body, a stranger’s lips tasting her skin, a stranger’s hard-- No. She squeezes her eyes shut with a shudder. _No_. Her whole being closes up at the thought of it. How could she stand that? With Drustan it just... happened. When she felt unwanted and plain and dull, he made her feel beautiful and clever and witty. He made her feel wanted. Then everything unfolded so naturally. He was gentle and slow and careful, always asking, always _listening_. Stopping when she tensed up. Waiting when she needed time. Easing back into it when she whispered _yes_.

Would a wildling do the same?

From Tormund’s stories she knows they enjoy pleasuring women, yes, but they also see resistance as a challenge. 

She only knows for certain one man who would respect her _no_. She has no real way of knowing, of course, but in her heart she knows he would. Imagining his hands caressing her body, his lips tasting her skin... It always makes her shudder too but for an entirely different reason.

It always _made_ her shudder.

She never imagines it anymore. She made herself stop years ago before the need and the heartache consumed her like the flames consume that scroll. 

It’s ashes now. As it should be.

She’ll never see Jon Snow again.


	2. Into the Woods

Jon dumps the kindling wood on the ground, and lays the bundle of fish on the flat stone he’s scrubbed clean of lichen and uses for a workbench. After reinvigorating the fire, he cleans a vendace and lets it grill while he takes care of the rest of the catch so he can hang it up on a rack to dry. Cleaning fish is soothing work, and he hums along with the birds singing and the river whispering and the knife scraping off scales. He never used to enjoy singing, doesn’t have the voice for it, but out here no one cares if he doesn’t hit the notes. No one cares if his voice breaks or he happens to change the key in the middle of a verse. Not the birds or the hares or the fish--and certainly not the river. 

It flows only a stone’s throw away, the Iselind, and carries salmon, grayling, and other fish that fill his belly day after day. Today, though, he woke up before sunrise and rode to a mountain lake where he spent the better part of the morning pulling up enough common perch and vendace to last him for quite a while before he finally caught his favorite: a small char, its belly rosy, shiny, and fat.

He’ll feast on it tonight; now he sits down on an old log by the fire and eats the grilled vendace while Shadow gets some hay. Then he gathers his hair in a bun and gets back to work.

He’s getting rather good at it, building cabins. The first one took almost a year. This one he started only a few months ago and he’s halfway already. It’s not as soothing as cleaning fish, perhaps, but toward the end of the summer his hard work will come to an end too, and the result will stand there, rustic and proud by the Iselind, among heather and birches with the snow-draped mountains as a backdrop. Completed.

Once the sun rests on the horizon, Jon puts down his tools, washes in the river, stokes the fire, and carries out his last cask of ale. There’s not much left by now. Maybe a gallon. He fills a cup he's carved himself from a birch burl, and sips while preparing the fish. Most days he grills fish plain, but now he crushes nuts and mixes them with acorn flour, salt, and dried herbs and covers the char with the crust before grilling it over the fire, beneath the stars. 

Pink-and-emerald swaths of color light up the midnight sky every three weeks; tonight they’re due another spectacle. Fish cooked and ale in hand, he settles down with Shadow behind his back and the Iselind in front of him and waits.

Although he savors every bite and every sip, he’s finished half the fish and most of the ale when the lights appear, sweeping across the endless sky and glittering in the river below and playing over the ever-snowkissed moors and mountains. He leans his head back against Shadow’s warm, sturdy body and admires the display until he feels dizzy from more than just the ale. Dizzy enough that he imagines himself hearing those colors sing to him.

“Well,” he says and lifts the cup to the sky, “happy nameday to me.”

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. One moment he gazes at the sky, the next he’s lying alone in the snow and the sunlight while his pillow rudely drinks from the river and his mind desperately clings to fragments of his dreams before they fade. His mouth tastes rotten, a dull ache throbs in his head, and he needs to make water so badly he could burst. He pushes himself to stand, but the ground beneath his feet moves like the deck of a ship caught in a storm. He’s barely taken two steps before he’s face-down on the ground. 

Shadow nudges him with her muzzle. Jon grunts. She nudges him again until he rolls over and pets her soft, soft nose.

“I’m fine, girl. Just stupid, that’s all.”

This time she helps him, standing still as he gets to his feet, walking by his side as he first relieves himself behind a tree and then heads down to the river with his chewing stick. Standing on his knees, he cleans his teeth, drinks away the foul taste in his mouth, and dips his whole throbbing head into the freezing water until his skin burns and his lungs scream for air. Then he sits back in the snow, panting, and lets the bright morning sun warm his face while the brisk morning winds do their best to freeze it.

Shadow settles down behind him. She’s of a stocky breed with a thick soot-colored coat and fuzzy ears, and although he often feeds her hay, she can graze easily even when snow covers the ground. She’s made for the true North, for the cold, just like him. Spring’s upon them now, though, and she’s already started shedding that thick coat. He should brush her. He should eat something. He should work some more. He should pack the pelts, seeds, nuts, and acorns he’s gathered over the colder months along with objects scavenged from abandoned Thenn settlements so that he’s prepared to leave for Tormund’s camp once the fish has finished drying.

The ale cask's empty. He’s almost out of nails and spikes. And salt. He only eats vegetables or tubers when he visits settlements, can’t remember the last time he had wine, and hasn’t read anything but the _The Nine Voyages_ in months. He’s close to the end again and would rather not flip it back to page one and start over for the sixth time. It wasn’t even that good the first time but getting finicky out here is pointless.

He should do a lot of things, but all he wants is to lean against Shadow and sleep away this headache. All he wants to do is close his eyes and paste those dream fragments back together. To dream them anew.

He dreamed of Winterfell again. Whenever he and Shadow settle down for the night (he never sleeps in the cabins unless the weather's relentless), Jon imagines his wonderful family and their wonderful lives, and lets those images carry him into a wonderful dream to stave off the nightmares.

In the early days Jon still asked Tormund for news whenever this old friend had ventured south. Jon knows Bran keeps an eye on Arya and sends Sansa ravens. He knows Gendry’s become lord of Storm’s End and that Sam’s on Bran’s small council. He knows Sansa is crowned Queen in the North. He knows she danced with at least six lords on her nameday celebration almost five years ago, now, and that one of them (some fancy southern prince who, in Tormund’s words, was as pretty as Jon) made her laugh and blush like a maid.

After that Jon decided he needed no more news.

His resolve only strengthened one late autumn morning when he woke to mist hovering over frostbitten moss and Tormund sitting on his haunches by him and Shadow, waiting for him to wake. The look in his blue eyes sent a chill down Jon’s spine.

“I don’t want to know,” he said then, shaking his head. “I don’t.”

In Jon’s fantasies they’re all safe and happy. They’re all alive. Sam has a brood of children and more books than even he could read in a lifetime. Davos grows old and fat with his wife in some lovely keep where they spoil their grandchildren rotten. Arya has sailed the seas and discovered new worlds. Sometimes, in his fantasies, she sails them still. Other times she’s grown weary of the sea and has settled down with Gendry in Storm’s End. Bran rules Westeros from a prosperous King’s Landing where new families now live and work and trade in the rebuilt houses. After Bran’s fall, Maester Luwin said he’d be unlikely to have children, but unlikely doesn’t mean impossible, and in Jon’s fantasies Bran always has a pretty wife and a son named Robb.

And Sansa… She has a husband. Someone who loves her. Someone who treats her right. A nameless, faceless lord who gives her as many children as she wants.

Before Ramsay fell and after Jon was crowned, things between him and Sansa were always tense, somehow. But in those seven days in between, they were happy. She enjoyed unwinding in front of the hearth in the evenings with her knitting or sewing; he enjoyed keeping her company. They didn’t speak much the first night, but then little by little they opened up. One night she even confessed that she still wanted all that, a husband and children. A family to love. She confessed she still hadn’t lost hope and that warmed him more even than the fire.

He never confessed the same. A bastard has no business dreaming of such things. 

Now he’s even worse than a bastard. A man who made his people follow a tyrant. A turncloak. A traitor. A Targaryen. 

Still he dreams. When he’s asleep, and his guilt and shame sleeps with him and can't control what his mind conjures, Jon dreams.

In his dreams Sansa’s husband has a name and a face.

In his dreams Winterfell is home.

* * *

The sand-colored pup bites at Jon’s thick sleeve while his amber sisters tumble over his legs to gnaw at his boots and his snow-white brother chases his own tail. Ghost’s mate, a lean direwolf with chestnut fur, oversees them from a distance. She never lets Jon pet her, but at least she lets him play with her cubs (even though it took a few visits before she stopped growling whenever he came near).

Two months old, they’re still tiny little things. Too adorable to be allowed.

“You think I could have one?" Jon asks and Ghost tilts his head, watching him. "Just one. You have so many. I have none.”

Ghost glances at his pups before looking back at Jon; his mate inches closer, head slightly lowered.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Smiling, Jon rubs the direwolf’s ear. “I just miss you, boy. That’s all. And it always takes me days to find Tormund without you. I’m leaving tomorrow. Won’t be gone for long, though. I hope. Watch over the cabin for me. I’ve got some food and tools I’d rather not have stolen.”

Ghost licks his face gently and Jon rests his forehead against his thick, fluffy neck, just for a moment. 

Safe from the upsetting scent of wolves, Shadow waits for him back at the cabin. He only needs to head back and pack the saddlebags and then they’re off to find Tormund's constantly moving camp. Jon once suggested they build him a keep, but his old friend only scoffed at that and said it’s no life for a man like him. He can’t be contained. And so long as he moves between settlements and the trading posts along the Wall, he’ll know his kingdom and his people well. And he does--and Jon knows his route. It might take him up to a week without Ghost, but he always finds Tormund in the end.

As Jon crosses the river, however, he notices smoke rising against the blue sky. The area has game and fish, aye, and a godswood about a mile south. But most of the Free Folk have settled even farther south, with the largest village located by the Antler river. Jon’s neighbors are few and far between. That smoke is coming from his camp. Even though he left the fire smoldering and it couldn’t possibly have spread. _Seven hells_. He rarely carries Longclaw anymore, goes out of his way to avoid a fight, hasn’t taken a life in years. He does carry a dagger, though. Can’t live out here without one.

Dagger drawn, he sneaks closer.

A man sits by his campfire, back to Jon, and stuffs his mouth with dried fish while rocking gently from side to side. His wild hair is bright red against the snowy mountains, a sleeping baby is tied to his chest, and a war hammer rests against the old log on which he's seated. A hammer gifted to him by Gendry of Storm’s End, after the Free Folk chose him for their king.

Breathing out his relief, Jon slides the dagger back in its sheath.

“Stealing food,” Jon says, smiling, as he rounds the campfire. ”Are times that dire for the King of the Free Folk?”

“Got hungry while I waited. Got any ale?”

“Nothing but water. Think I got some bark left, though.”

“Bah.” Tormund wipes his fingers on his trousers. “Heat some up, then. Need something warm in me.” Grinning, he waggles his eyebrows. “Unless you have a different solution.”

Jon chuckles, shaking his head. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Once two steaming cups of bark tea stand on the makeshift stone table, Tormund gets to his feet, unwraps the babe carefully, and hands him over to Jon. 

“You think they don’t weigh much, but after a while…” He stretches out his back with a satisfying crack before sitting back down without a sign that he wants his son back.

“He’s getting big,” Jon says, smiling down at the pudge-cheeked prince.

Tormund puffs out his chest with a proud grin. “Like his father.”

He’s got his father’s hair too, ginger tufts of baby-soft hair sticking out from under his fur-lined hood. Jon tucks him a little closer. To keep him warm. To keep him sleeping. That’s all.

“Looks good on you, a little one.”

“Don’t start,” Jon says, sitting down next to him on the log.

“What? You’re getting long in the tooth. Those looks of yours won’t last forever. Especially not out here.” Tormund lowers his chin and locks eyes with Jon. “Stig fell down a mountain a few months ago. Agnys says she’s done mourning. Asked about you. Do you, uh”--his eyes dart down to Jon’s crotch--”still have your little problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Agnys says you do. And Ragna. And--”

“I can get it up.” Jon scowls at him. “I just didn’t _want_ to.”

“Why not? They’re fine looking women, both of them. Strong too.”

“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t want to. Still don’t.”

“You’ll rot up here on your own. Grow moss on that little pecker of yours. Is that what you want? The whole north is full of spearwives wanting a pretty little… Ah.” Squinting thoughtfully, Tormund nods to himself. “That’s the problem. Not a spearwife. You want a _lady_. Just like you said at--”

“I only want nails. And some ale. Salt. A new book. Wouldn’t mind a cask of wine.”

“Huh?”

Turning away from the baby in case he spills, Jon blows on his bark tea. “You’re saving me a trip. Was going to come find you, ask you to trade for me at Castle Black. What brings you this far north?”

“Going south.”

Jon smiles crookedly. “Afraid you got a bit turned around.”

“I’m going to Winterfell to introduce my son to all the fancy lords and ladies. And to the Queen.”

Jon’s stomach does a little lurch; he gulps tea, the brew scalding his tongue. He welcomes it.

“Tell me, my little crow: how long has it been since you’ve been farther south than the Fist of the First Men?”

Jon lowers is cup slowly, watching Tormund’s eager expression over the rim. “No.”

“Yes.”

He puts the cup down. Firmly. “I’m not coming with you.”

“Yes.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

Jon sighs deeply. “I’ve told you. I’m never going back there.”

“You also told me I need to nurture my relationship with the North if I want to keep the peace between our people. That’s what I’m doing. I’m having a feast at Winterfell to celebrate the birth of my son. A prince of ice, kissed by fire!” Tormund thrusts out his hand, tea sloshing over his fingers; he drops the cup with a hiss and shakes his hand before shoving it into the thin blanket of snow. “You’re supposed to help me with this. I need you.”

“You don’t need me. I brought shame to the North, to my family. You think anyone wants me there? I led their fathers and brothers and sons into a-a…” Unwanted memories tug at his attention, begging to be acknowledged, begging to be let in; he shakes his head until they fall away. “I’m where I belong. I’m not Jon Snow anymore. I’m not a Stark. I’m just… Jon the Crow. It’s all I want to be.”

The boy in his arms opens his eyes, takes one look at Jon, and lets out an ear-piercing wail. 

Leaning back from the noise, Jon holds out the baby toward his father. “Still think it looks good on me?"

“Lies always make him cry,” Tormund says, one eye narrowed. Jon rolls his eyes. Chuckling, Tormund takes his son. “He’s hungry, that’s all.” He tears off a bit of fish and offers it to the babe from the flat of his palm. Clumsily, the prince grabs the strip and brings it to his mouth to suck on. “Got a milk-mother with me.” Tormund nods vaguely behind him in the direction of the godswood, where his retinue must be waiting. “I should get him back so…” He clears his throat and, with a firm hold on his son, rises to his feet so that he towers over Jon. “As long as you stay in the lands beyond the Wall, I am your king. Obey me or I’ll banish you to Castle Black where you can grow moss in peace instead of chopping down all my trees and build half a town along the Iselind.”

“Obey you? I thought I was a free man. I thought we _all_ were free. Isn’t that what we’re called? The _Free_ Folk.”

Tormund shrugs. “You’re coming. Even if I have to knock you down, tie you up, and carry you there myself.”

“Yeah?” Jon lifts his chin and thrusts out his chest like a rooster ready to fight. “Go on, then, Your Grace. Give it your best.”

“Stop being a stubborn old goat. You’re coming.”

“I’m not.”

“You,” Tormund says, “ _are_.”

“I’m. Not.”

Tormund sits back down, shoulders slumping and head shaking sorrowfully. “I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.” He props up the boy on his knee, who peers at Jon with big blue eyes while gnawing at the fish with his gums. “He lost his mother. I lost my woman. And now we’re riding to Winterfell to feast with fancy southerners. All alone. With no support.”

“You have a whole group of--”

“With _no_ support! I followed you into battle after battle without a single complaint. I cheered King in the North with all the--”

“No, you didn’t. You kept eating.”

“--fancy lords. I drank in your honor. I wept with joy when I saw you still standing after the battle against the Night King. I welcomed you into my kingdom when you had nowhere else to turn. I listened to you cry and cry when you were deep into your cups. I held you when you had nightmares. I,” he says and breathes in deeply through his nose while looking out over the river with misty eyes, “was a true friend and I am one still. But a man who refuses to celebrate the birth of his best friend’s son, a man who refuses to be by his best friend’s side when he needs him, what kind of friend is that? Huh? What kind of friend.”

Rubbing his forehead, Jon heaves a sigh. “No friend at all.”

Tormund closes his eyes and nods soulfully. “No friend at all."

“Is Agnys or Ragna with you?”

“No.”

Jon heaves another sigh, pointedly, and packs his bags.

* * *

He met Agnys after he built his first cabin. Ygritte’s words about what life could be like as a free man had been nagging at him for a good while, and he found himself the perfect spot. A valley by one of the lower branches of the Iselind, where crisp winds flow in from the Bay of Ice and plenty of elk, deer, hares, and ptarmigan roam the area. It took him almost a year to build the damn thing. Now all he needed was a woman. Someone with whom he could lie at night and have a few little ones they'd teach how to hunt and forage and fight.

No responsibilities, no rules. Just following the seasons and the sun and your own heart. 

He rode to the settlement at the Antler to trade. To drink. To try his luck. Agnys was dark-eyed, funny, and bold, and beat him at throwing axes without even trying. They flirted all evening and he thought that maybe _maybe_ , but then she kissed him and he didn’t feel a thing. Once she started pawing at him, he just pushed her away and left.

Then there was Ragna with her pale eyes and dark honey blond hair that deepened into copper in the light of the bonfire. She was tall and strong but gentle and shy too. She even blushed prettily whenever she caught him staring. But then she led him into the woods for privacy and there, beneath the cold light of the full moon, her hair paled into silver and the kisses that had tasted sweet enough by the fire now tasted like servitude and cowardice. They tasted like death.

Other women have tried their luck. They find Jon the Crow pretty, they want to be the one who finally snares him, and when wildling women want something, they’re not shy about it.

He always turns them down.

A different family lives in the cabin in which he thought he’d grow old. Two children. One more on the way, last he heard. Living a good life.

What would his children be, anyway? What would the wreak upon the world? Important questions. Useless questions. He wouldn’t know the answer until it’s too late. 

A woman turns in her saddle and eyes him over her shoulder, a smirk playing on her full lips. Jon the Bastard would've admired those lips. Jon the Bastard would've wondered how they'd feel against his own.

But Jon the Crow pulls up the hood of his coat and rides on.

* * *

The Wall is weeping away its once impressive height, but it still stands--and stands tall too. Jon cranes his neck and gazes up up up until his head swims and he has to slide off Shadow and support himself with a hand on her withers. During the days of crossing the lands between the Iron Mountains and the border to the North, of reaching greener and greener fields, she’s shed the last of her winter coat and made herself ready for spring. 

(He’s not so sure he’s ready to shed his own.)

He hasn’t passed through the gates at the Wall since he left Castle Black. Not once. If Tormund can’t trade for him, Jon visits the settlement at the Antler. If he’s desperate, he rides to the Shadow Tower or Eastwatch, but he avoids those places too if he can. Too many northmen gather there too trade and gamble and drink and fuck.

A clean break, he thought back then. That would be best for all of them. He never brought them anything but trouble and grief, from the day he was born until the day he left.

Jon flexes what once was his sword-hand. Now it mostly holds a hammer. It feels empty without it. The air sounds empty without that rhythmic banging, even though it’s full with the sound of people chatting and children laughing and horses snorting as they ride through the gates without hesitation.

His feet are nailed to the ground. The air down here is too thick and cloying. The Wall weeps on. 

He loosens the laces at his neck.

He could swing himself up in the saddle and ride back to the cabin. Tormund wouldn’t even notice. He’s at the head of the steadily moving flock. Perhaps they’re already on the Kingsroad while Jon stands here, staring up at a Wall that once seemed insurmountable.

(It still does.)

Once it was the only thing protecting them from the Night King. Now it protects him from the truth. When he stands on this side of it, everyone he loves is safe and well and happy. But if he steps through those gates there's no turning back and soon he'll reach the place where guilt and shame and the awful truth await him when he doesn’t want his fantasies shattered. (When he doesn't want some of them confirmed.)

“Sometimes, to move forward, you have to go back.” 

Jon jolts. Tormund stands next to him, his blue eyes kind and warm, his thick wildling coat open, and his hair damp at the temples.

“What?”

“When I was a boy, we had one really long winter. Mild one, though. Well,” he says, laughing, and slaps Jon on the back, “maybe not for you southerners.”

Then he wraps an arm around Jon’s shoulders and gestures before them with his free hand as he tells a story from his childhood when his village had to relocate after too frequent attacks from the mountain clans. Their warg had found a valley rich with plants and game where the surrounding woods full of direwolves and bears would form a barrier between them and the mountain men. To reach that valley, though--unless you wanted to hike through those dangerous woods for days--they would have to cross a big frozen lake.

Only it had been mild that year. The ice wasn’t as thick as they were used to, and five-six hours in, it started cracking.

“Our wise man said the true cold was coming,” Tormund says. “He could feel it in his bones. But he couldn't say when. It could be hours. It could happen over night. It could take days. It could take--”

“I get it.”

Tormund grunts out a hum. “So we had a choice. We could stay right there, at the lake, and wait for the cracks to heal. If they did. Or we could go back to our village, risk the ice cracking further, risk running into the mountain men, and take the path leading into the woods where even greater dangers waited for us. Not an easy choice. We didn’t have much of a leader. Free folk do what we want. A small group decided it was safer to stay on the lake, but most of us went back. We lost several good men and women and a few children along the way. But six days later we reached the valley. We were safe. We could settle down, build ourselves a new village. But the folk who stayed on the lake?" He shrugs with a sad smile. "Never saw them again."

"I'm sorry."

"Mm. Well, the Night King would've taken them anyway, sooner or later..." Another sad smile. "I’m not clever like you southerners, but sometimes clever people make everything so damn complicated for no reason. Your _little problem_ won’t go away if you stay on the lake and wait for the cracks to heal. Going through the woods is hard and scary, and you might need to fight your way through, but it gets you where you need to be. Sometimes, to move forward, you have to go back."

"Aye, sometimes. But is this one of those times?"

"Yes."

"I promised myself I'd never return."

"That was a stupid promise." Tormund's mighty paw lands on Jon's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Now get back in the saddle, crow.”

Jon’s gaze returns to the Wall rising up against the sky.

In his dreams Winterfell is home, aye, but he’s awake and Winterfell is the woods he must brave before he can find wherever home will be.

Jon swings himself up in the saddle. He never was very good at keeping promises.


	3. An Unexpected Reunion

Last Jon heard, Brienne still carried Oathkeeper and gifted Widow’s Wail to Podrick. Now they’re guarding King Bran with the Valyrian steel that once comprised Ice. It’s fitting, Jon supposes. As the last son of Eddard Stark, Bran is to whom Ice should belong. But it’s Sansa who remains at Winterfell. It’s Sansa who rules the North. It’s Sansa who’s the future of House Stark--and House Stark no longer has an ancestral sword. 

It might not have heirs yet either. Little Stark children might not be lined up with their mother and father in the courtyard right this moment, waiting to greet the King Beyond the Wall and his prince, but one day they will. Sansa Stark is a creature of duty, and her duty is to produce an heir to her kingdom. An heir to the castle which looms over Jon.

He’s at the back of the group, stroking the familiar ridges of the wolf head pommel with his thumb as he waits his turn to enter a place at which he no longer belongs. Maybe he never did. Longclaw, though… This is where Longclaw belongs. Serving the future Kings and Queens in the North whose names will be Stark. 

Lyanna Mormont would’ve liked that. She would’ve liked Jon presenting it to the first Queen in the North as a gift. As a peace offering.

At least that’s what he thought when he wrapped it in cloth while he packed. It’s what he thought when he rode across the lands beyond the Wall. As he rode down the Kingsroad, however, past all the woods and fields full of landmarks and memories, an uneasiness grew in his body. Shadow sensed it even, ears flicking back and forth to locate the invisible source of her rider’s distress. By the time they stopped halfway between Castle Black and Winterfell to eat and drink, the unease had filled him so that he could do neither. He just sat there with a dried fish in his hand, staring at the bright yellow coltsfoot dotting the wilted grass, until someone asked him, “Are you eating that?” and nicked the fish from his fingers without waiting for a reply. 

When they returned to their horses, Jon’s hands moved on their own volition, unwrapped Longclaw, and strapped on the scabbard. The moment its weight settled on him, a calm suffused his body and when he swung himself back into the saddle, Shadow trotted on with her ears happily perked.

Now, though, they’re flicking again. She wants to join the herd moving into the courtyard while he holds her back. The gates to Winterfell might stand wide open to welcome the wildlings, but would they had Sansa known he was among them?

What if she throws him out?

(What if she hugs him?)

Jon rolls his shoulders and tugs at his collar. Soap is hard to come by where he lives. The wildlings have taught him to shake birch leaves and water in a jug until it foams and use it to wash his hair and body--and he does wash whenever he can, in ice cold rivers or banks of snow or one of the hot springs sprinkled throughout the true North. But he’s not had a proper bath since his brief stint as Lord Commander of an obsolete institution.

To him he smells like hard work and horse and mountain life. To Sansa he must reek like a wildling--and he is one, isn’t he? With his long hair and bushy beard and patchwork coat, he’s someone she’d crinkle her nose at hadn’t she been too well-bred to grimace.

Someone sighs deeply in his ear. Tormund has maneuvered his dun horse next to Shadow. He sighs again, shaking his head. “Are we doing this at every wall we reach, because I think that will become old real quick.”

“No, I…” Jon's voice fades, always does whenever he tries asking Tormund about the truths he’ll soon have no choice but to face. He clears his throat and tries again. “What’s waiting for me in there?” 

Tormund slaps his shoulder. “Only one way to find out.”

* * *

The muddy ground squelches beneath Jon’s boots. He feels it more than he hears it, can barely hear anything over the thunder of his heart. A mess of wildlings dismounting horses and greeting old friends and not giving a shit about decorum shields Jon from the queen who must be waiting for the din to settle. Waiting with her family, all lined up and patient.

(She must have one. Mustn’t she?)

A wildling woman chases after a child shrieking about puppies and running toward the kennels. The wildling shield breaks to let them through and there she is. Tall. Red-haired. Radiant. More wildlings pass in front of Jon, but they’re all a blur; he sees only her and her copper braid and her pale-blue eyes and her warm smile that outshines everything else. A giant could scoop up Winterfell and dump it upside-down in the mud and he wouldn’t notice.

She doesn’t notice him, though. Even though his yearning body pushes itself through the crowd to come closer, she doesn’t notice him. That warm smile is for Tormund, growing wider when he exclaims her name so loudly his booming voice echoes in the courtyard and wider still when he wraps his arms around her and spins her around and around as if she were a young girl and not a queen. When Tormund puts her back down on the ground, her eyes sparkle and she’s almost a little breathless and Tormund never _ever_ told Jon they were this close. Never.

It’s an ugly feeling rearing its head; Jon squashes it before it grows bold.

“Well,” Sansa says, stepping back and scanning Tormund’s retinue with her eyes, “where is he?”

She’ll see him soon. Jon. She’ll see him. He holds his breath. Now--

Her eyes glide over him without a flicker of recognition.

“And where’s Gullis?” 

Tormund cups her shoulder, lips curved in a sorrowful smile. “I wanted to tell you myself.”

The sparkle in Sansa's eyes fade. “No…”

He nods sadly. “Fever took her when he was but three days old.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, lashes already wet with tears, and pulls him in for another hug. She even keeps her hands on his upper arms when she pulls back. “If there’s anything I can do--”

“Now, don’t cry, my little queen. We’re here to celebrate. Come, meet my boy!”

He plucks the babe from the milk-mother’s arms and hands him to Sansa, who embraces him reflexively with a flash of panic she doesn’t hide quickly enough for Jon to miss. The boy senses nothing, though. Beaming at her as if he’s known her his whole little life, he grabs her braid and brings it to his mouth for a taste, and tears fill Sansa’s eyes anew. Tears for a sweet motherless boy, aye, but there’s something else too. Something in her gaze, in the faint strain in her smile...

“Hi, sweet boy,” she says, softly, “I’m Sansa. What’s your name?”

The boy gurgles out a baby noise and gnaws some more on her braid.

“Giving babes names before they turn two is bad luck,” Tormund says. “Most call him Prince for now. I call him Squirrel, because of his cheeks, see?”

“Squirrel,” she whispers with a watery smile, brushing a finger over the boy's pudgy cheeks. “You’re such a handsome little boy, yes you are.”

“Of course he is! He’s kissed by fire, just like you and me.”

Sansa nods absentmindedly, gazing down at the babe who looks as if he could be hers with a painful kind of longing and oh. _Oh._ Finally, Jon takes his eyes off her and looks at the people behind her. Maester Wolkan is there along with a handful of lords and ladies. Advisers and handmaidens, it seems, but no husband, no children, no family. Not even Brienne.

Sansa’s alone. 

She’s lonely.

“I’m sure you’re all tired after the ride,” she says with a forced brightness, eyes moving over the crowd without meeting anyone’s gaze. “Supper will be served in a couple of hours in the Great Hall for your party, and in the small dining room for…”

The flow of her words slow to a stop as her eyes land on Jon's hip. On Longclaw. Then she sucks in a breath and finally lifts her eyes and looks at him properly-- No, _gawks_ at him as if he rose from the dead. Her face is frozen in the same kind of disbelief Jon once saw on Davos and Melisandre’s features, only whereas Davos gave relief too and Melisandre wonder, all Sansa has to offer him is revulsion. As if he didn’t return a living breathing man after all but a rotting corpse. 

Without as much as a polite greeting, she hands Squirrel back to his father, excuses herself, and strides off, each step a slap in Jon’s face.

“I’m leaving,” he mutters.

Tormund grabs the front of his coat and tugs him close. “You’re staying.”

“She doesn’t want me here. Did you see the look she gave me? She’s telling the guards to have me thrown--”

“She’s not throwing you out. You’re family.”

“She never liked me much. I knew that, but now she _hates_ me.”

“And whose fault is that?” Tormund bores his eyes into him; Jon squirms beneath his glare. “Men face their problems head-on, like a bear. Men don’t run away and hide in the snow like scared little rabbits. If she wants to throw you out, then stay where you are and let her. You can give her that at least.”

Then Squirrel starts crying, and Tormund releases Jon and turns his attention to his son, making silly faces and noises while bouncing him up and down.

Jon glances over his shoulder at the gates behind them. Servants are moving the horses into the stables. Others are carrying saddlebags into the guesthouse. Shadow is still waiting her turn. If he mounted her now, he’d be back on the Kingsroad before anyone could blink. He could ride like the wind and be back at the cabin within days, working and fishing and cuddling Ghost’s pups as if he never came to Winterfell at all...

His hand returns to Longclaw. It shouldn’t grow moss along with Jon in the lands of wildlings. He should leave it with her before he goes. It’s only right. And if that means he’ll be politely escorted out by guards afterwards, so be it.

Posture straight and chin tilted up, he waits with his heart pounding so hard in his chest it heats up his body until his clothes stick to his skin. His hands rest on the buckle of his sword belt, ready to unfasten it. Her name rests on his tongue, ready to meet the air and break the five year silence between them. But then she returns with a polite mask fused to her face, the mask of a perfectly poised and gracious hostess, and before Jon’s gotten a word out, she explains to them that the guesthouse is prepared for Tormund and his retinue. That supper will be served in the Great Hall for Tormund’s people in two hours, and that a more intimate supper will be served for him and her in the small dining room.

“As usual,” she adds with the affectionate smile of close friends. But then she looks at Jon and the warmth in her gaze turns to ice. Dunking him into the Shivering Sea would’ve been a more pleasant experience. “You’re of course welcome to join us.”

Tormund slings his arm around Jon’s shoulders, squeezing him so hard Jon cringes. “Oh, he will! Barely ate a thing all day. He’s been saving himself for some good old Winterfell ham.” 

Sansa looks impossibly colder. “You’ll find your chamber as you left it. There’s a bath waiting for you.” Her gaze glides over his bushy beard and flowing hair. “And a pair of shears. I trust you remember the way. Or do you need one of my men to escort you?”

Jon shakes his head and then he’s forgotten, left behind by Sansa escorting Tormund and his boy personally to the guesthouse as if nothing could be more important than her dear friend the King of the Free Folk. Nothing. Not even her own bleeding… whatever the fuck Jon is now.

He watches them until they disappear into the building. Then he grabs his saddlebags and finds his old chambers on his own.

* * *

Maids rush about the room, pulling sheets off furniture, dressing the bed, pouring hot water into the tub, filling the wardrobe with Jon Snow’s clothes Sansa must’ve stored elsewhere to protect them from moths and fur beetles and other vermin. Saddlebags shouldered, Jon stands in the doorway and watches them quietly. When one of them--a pretty girl who can’t be older than twenty and he doesn’t recognize at all--starts building a fire in the hearth, Jon finally clears his throat and steps into the room. Both girls jump, gaping at him.

“There’s no need for that,” he says. “I’m used to the cold.”

“Yes, m’lord,” the pretty girl says. The other elbows her and hisses something in her ear. Blushing, the pretty girl curtsies. “Your Grace.”

“I’m not. Not anymore.”

The pretty maid seems to disagree, though, for she flutters her lashes and offers to help him with his bath, and to cut his hair, and to help him dress. And even though he dismisses them both, she still bites her lip and gives him a look full of want and promises, and when she closes the door behind her, he knows there’s a risk he’ll find her back tonight. In his bed, hoping to warm it.

If he stays.

He never belonged here; it’s more clear to him than ever. Aye, he found his chamber where and how he left it--it even smells the same--but now it dawns on Jon just how little of _him_ there is in here. How, even after being crowned king and accepted by the lords in the North as Ned Stark’s son, he knew it wouldn’t last. He knew there was no point in making it home, making it _his_. It was just somewhere to sleep at night before yet another day of warfare pulled all the energy out of him.

Jon dumps the saddlebags on the bed, peels off his clothes, and lowers himself into the tub. He’ll attend supper, ask about Arya and Bran and the rest, give Sansa Longclaw, and then he and Shadow will return to the Iselind and the half-built cabin. They’ll return to the quiet comfort of the true North.

Tormund doesn’t need him at the feast tomorrow. From the looks of it, he’s closer to Sansa than Jon ever was.

  
  


* * *

* * *

Sansa sinks down on the padded bench by her vanity and stares at her reflection blurring into copper-and-peach. Gentle fingers undo her braid. It’s sticky with baby drool. She can still feel the prince’s weight in her arms, that plump little boy who cooed when she asked him about his trip, laughed when she tickled his round belly, and tugged at her braid when she carried him on her hip as she showed Tormund around the guesthouse.

“He likes you,” Tormund said. “He usually cries by now if someone other than me or his milk-mother holds him.”

"I like him too," she said and buried her nose in the boy's ginger hair and breathed him in.

She can still smell that soft, milky baby smell.

Hair undone, she rises to her feet. Gentle fingers undo her laces, pull off her dress, her corset, her shift, her smallclothes. Her skin prickles with gooseflesh when the steam from the bath clings to her body and clashes with the cool air flowing in through the window. A hand holds hers as she uses the step-stool to get into the tub where she lowers herself slowly into the water.

Gentle fingers lather her hair, lather a washcloth, wash her clean.

* * *

* * *

A door slams shut.

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Jon grips the rim of the tub and sits up properly, eyes flitting over his surroundings and heart racing in his chest. Right. He’s at Winterfell. He sits in tepid bath water. He’s alone. He exhales his relief.

The muffled sound of giggles come through the wall. A wall he shares with Sansa.

It didn’t start that way, but she had nightmares so often and sometimes screamed so loud he heard it even down the hallway. He’d wake her, then, and standing by the door (never walking farther into the room) he’d talk to her until she calmed or even fell back asleep. She said she felt safer with him near. So he moved into the chamber next to hers and her nightmares plagued her less and less.

Another giggle reaches him. Not hers. He hasn’t heard her giggling since she was a little girl. Her handmaidens, then, cleaning her room or dressing her in something sensible but elegant. Unless she’s in the bathtub right now, just like him, and that’s not a thought he should entertain.

Jon leaves the tub and opens the saddlebags, pulling out a fresh set of clothes. He only has two. The set he arrived in, and the set he wears whenever he visits settlements for some celebration or other.

The latter consists of simple black breeches and a black tunic he nicked from the Night’s Watch before leaving and he’s worn so rarely they still look decent enough. At least to him. Sansa might expect him to wear the clothes waiting for him in the wardrobe, but those clothes belonged to the King in the North. He’s Jon the Crow now, and Jon the Crow wears his own simple clothes and ignores the shears waiting for him on the nightstand.

Oh, he knows how he looks. He’s caught his reflection in crystal clear lakes. Hair past his shoulders, beard unkempt, face tan from spending all his time outdoors, body lean from working hard and eating what nature provides. Not fitting the northern court, perhaps, but where he lives no one cares about his singing and no one cares about his looks. He’s pretty enough for the river and for spearwives and for maids. That’s good enough for him.

He doesn’t even look in the mirror once he’s dressed. If his appearance is so offensive to her, then she’ll just have to be fucking offended.

* * *

* * *

Dried and wrapped in a robe, Sansa once more sinks down in front of the vanity. The handmaidens gossip and giggle about the wildling men they fancy as they weave her damp hair into a braided bun. One of them asks her what she wants to wear, holding out a couple of choices. Sansa picks one. It’s gray. Maybe. Was it blue? She blinks at her reflection. She has a pimple on the left side of her chin.

Of course she does. Of course she had to look _awful_ today.

_Stop it._

She steps into her clothes, sucks in her stomach when they tighten her corset, and holds out her arms when they pull up the sleeves and lace the bodice.

“...Your Grace?”

“Mm,” Sansa says, turning her head to look at Kari who must’ve been speaking to her for a while, if her expression is anything to go by. “Pardon?”

“I just said it must be nice. That your cousin decided to visit, finally.”

“Yes. Very nice.”

“He looked so different. I barely recognized him.”

“Yes. Very different.”

“Your Grace looks a bit pale. Shall I pour you some wine?”

Sansa shakes her head, and Kari and the other girl step back to let Sansa admire her own reflection in the full length mirror gifted to her by one of her many suitors. She can’t even remember whom anymore. 

Kari pushes herself up on tip-toes and adjusts Sansa’s collar. “There. You’re ready, Your Grace. You look beautiful.”

Sansa stares at herself, at her blank eyes and impassive face. Yes, she is ready.

Over years, she’s feared meeting him again, feared that just one look at him would reignite all those feelings she worked so hard on slaking. She was prepared for it, even, prepared to hide those feelings until she could slake them again if he ever showed up at the gates of Winterfell or she ran into him at Castle Black.

She wasn’t prepared for the rage. A rage that has simmered silently in the deepest parts of her without her knowledge and his mere presence brought to a boil she had to use all her willpower to suppress.

As a girl, she’d get angry sometimes. She’d stomp her foot or yell at Arya when she was horrible or cry out when things weren’t fair. Then they came to King’s Landing and she learned to temper it, to become a little dove whose docile demeanor hid her rage. She tempers it still, but not as a docile dove but a dignified queen. She can control it. She can be perfectly pleasant. She’s had to spend evenings being polite to worse men than Jon Snow.

At least she doesn’t love him anymore. She looked right into his eyes and felt nothing but anger--and _that_ was a relief. If she had to battle love _and_ rage for control over her composure, surely she’d lose.

Yes, she’s ready. Sansa nods at her reflection (the dress is dove blue). She _is_.

With her head held high, she walks down the hallway to the small dining room. The guard outside bows his head and opens the door for her; she steps inside.

Gazing up at the dark evening sky, Jon stands by the window with a tankard of ale in his hand and the candlelight playing in his still-damp hair. At the sound of her heels against flagstone, he turns around and the door closes behind her and Tormund isn’t there and they’re all alone and his eyes widen at the sight of her and she wants to scream. How _dare_ he saunter into Winterfell after all these years, after leaving her to clean up his mess, without as much as a--

_No. Stop it._

She takes a deep, soothing breath and relaxes the hands she’d tightened into fists. She’s better than this. She is.

She’s calm. She’s collected. She’s ready. She is.

Isn’t she?


	4. A Horsefly Bite

When life at Winterfell was simple and safe, the honorable Lord Eddard Stark and his clever lady wife Catelyn would host intimate suppers in the small dining room two-three times a week. This way they got to know the families of the North. Once Robb and Sansa were old enough, they often joined their parents, both needing to learn the ways of host and hostess, of keeping the conversation flowing no matter the company, for when Robb would rule Winterfell himself, and Sansa wed a fancy lord and run her own castle.

The bastard was never invited, never had reason to even peer inside the chamber (although, he did sneak inside sometimes to admire the large tapestry depicting a pack of wolves running through snow-draped woods).

Once Jon became king he never had the time to do the same. Sansa mentioned it once, though, he remembers. When she talked about _afterwards_. She did that sometimes. “Once we’ve won the wars,” she’d say, but Jon only saw the Night King.

They did use to break their fast in here, though. In those days after they took back Winterfell and before Tormund left for the Wall, and Jon and Davos left for Dragonstone, six people with wildly different egg preferences would break their fast in this room for intimate starts to bustling days where midday and evening meals were served in the Great Hall with all the rest.

Davos liked his scrambled with butter. Podrick wanted his fried on a slice of toasted bread. Brienne liked a poached egg sprinkled with salt, but always took hers the way Sansa did (soft-boiled with the top sliced off so she could dip bread into the yolk). As to not make a fuss, Jon pretended not to care even though a runny yolk turns his stomach and he likes his so hard-boiled the yolk gets almost chalky. Tormund truly wasn’t fussy and gladly took his the wildling way: cutting two holes in the shell, plugging one with his finger, and inhaling white and yolk raw through the other. The first time he did it, Brienne was so appalled she forgot to look away and, emboldened, Tormund did it again without breaking eye contact. (Brienne didn’t have eggs for three days.) 

To spare the poor cooks, they'd argue every morning about how the eggs would be served that day. They'd tease and poke fun at one another; they'd laugh and grin. Jon still remembers those days fondly, when something so mundane as eggs could have them forgetting about ranks and wars and the Night King and enjoy each other's company for half an hour.

It was the one moment each day they felt like a family.

Sansa fills her cup with Arbor gold. In the candlelight her features look as if carved from oak and polished smooth, hard and soft all at once. She takes a sip, tongue darting out to lick her lips as she puts the cup back down, and glances at the door with the most discreet of sighs before returning her eyes to the tapestry. She hasn't stopped looking at it since she sat down.

After the Stark banners had replaced the Bolton banners, that tapestry was one of the first things she made sure returned to its rightful place.

He knows she loves it. 

(He’s staring again; he shouldn’t stare.)

They used to call her amiable, he remembers. Well-mannered. Those guests who’d dine in here with the lord and lady and their eldest trueborn children. They used to shower Lady Catelyn with compliments for raising such a well-mannered daughter who could converse with anyone about anything.

Anyone but him, it seems, for she hasn't said a word.

Jon fills his tankard with ale from the small cask standing on the table and downs all of it in one go before loudly exhaling his satisfaction, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and putting the tankard down like a man of the mountain.

Sansa’s eyes cut to him. It’s the first time she’s meet his gaze since she entered the room and even though every instinct he has tells him to duck his head, he forces himself to keep that eye contact until she’s the one who averts her eyes, blushing.

“I hope your ride from Castle Black was pleasant,” she says in a voice that isn’t hers. “We’ve had good weather the past few weeks. Very little rain makes for dry roads.”

“Yeah, it was… Yeah.”

She takes the wine cup, fingers tapping gently against the bowl while her eyes move back and forth as if hoping the unmoving door, the wine, the tapestry, and the spread of honey-glazed ham, seed-sprinkled bread, beer-braised turnips, and glass garden-grown spring greens will spark a topic of conversation. She drinks, eyes still moving, and he’s never seen her like this in his life.

(It breaks his heart a bit.)

“Happy belated nameday. I hope your celebration was ple…” She swallows, the blush deepening. “I hope you had a lovely day.”

“I had fish,” he says in an easy tone, hoping to break the tension but receives only bemusement. “Sansa,” he says, softly now and with a gentle smile, “any chance I might get to exchange a word or two with my sister? If you know where she's gone.”

It does the trick. A charmingly lopsided smile, a sparkle in his eyes, a touch of humor as he acknowledges how odd it is to sit here and hobble through the most awkward conversation of their lives like complete strangers when they know each other so well. She softens too, with a sigh, with a release of tension in her shoulders, with the slightest of smiles.

“If Arya knew you were here, I’m sure she would’ve--”

“I didn’t mean Arya.”

“She’s the only sister you have.”

And there it is. Her eyes might widen, her cheeks might burn with shame over her slip, but at least it’s the truth. Long hidden but not as well as she might’ve believed. He always knew it. Deep down, he always knew it, and he slaps the napkin on the table and thrusts the chair back as he rises because he _knew_ it.

“Suppose I should thank you. For finally admitting it. You never saw me as family. Never. I was only ever someone who--”

“ _Family_?” She shoots to her feet too, eyes blazing. “Don’t you _dare_ talk to me about family.”

Then she draws in such a deep breath, Jon prepares himself for a scolding that will shake even the walls of Winterfell. But before she's gotten a word out, Tormund dances in through the door, arms spread as wide as his smile as if to embrace them both in the greatest of hugs. Luckily, he only slams his hand down on Jon’s shoulder like a hammer, pressing him back into his chair. Squeezes it for good measure, fingers digging into Jon's muscles. Pats it even as he makes his way to Sansa and drops a kiss to her hair before taking his seat.

Still blushing, Sansa gathers her skirts and her herself and sits down too. 

“I’m late, I know. There’s this maid, never seen her before.” Tormund whistles, pouring himself a tankard of ale. “Shoulders like a man. Tits bigger than my head. Tall as the queen. If all womenfolk down here looked like that, I'd never leave.” He waggles his eyebrows, one corner of his mouth lifted in a grin. “She offered to warm my bed. Not in so many words, but I know how you southerners flirt."

"So why are you not in your bed?" Jon asks.

"If you want to make love all night, you need food and drink first.” Tormund slaps his hands together and eyes the spread. “Ah! Ham!” He shuffles a good six or seven slices onto his plate. “And bread! That’s something you southerners do well. I’ll give you that.” He scoops up turnips and dumps them on Jon’s plate. Then he slaps a couple of slices of ham onto it, and drops a bit of bread and two scoops of spring greens next to the ham. “Eat, crow. You won’t see food this good in… Well, however many years it takes me to drag you down here next time.” With a mouth already full of food, Tormund rests his arm on Jon’s backrest and leans back, beaming. “Look at us. Just like old times, eh? All we’re missing is Davos and Podrick and the big woman.”

“Still pining after her?” Jon asks with a smirk that dies the instant Tormund turns his head to him and gives him such a pointed look heat prickles Jon’s cheeks.

"I don't pine, boy. I'll always love her, but she wanted that King Killer not me. And what good did it do her? He just left her! Who would leave a woman like that? If I had her in my bed, I’d treat her so well she’d never want to get up. I’d work her for hours, make her slick like--”

“Yeah, all right. That’s enough.” 

“I would, though. I’d treat her right. Not like that southern cunt. He didn’t deserve her.”

“No,” Sansa says, quietly. “The men women love the most are rarely the ones who deserve it.”

Tormund nods. “Some men don’t know how good they have it.”

Then he sighs into his tankard before draining it, too deep into his own heartache too notice that Sansa seems to nurture some of her own.

Those quiet words, bitter-tinted and aching, can’t be about the time she, as an innocent girl, fell for prince Joffrey only to learn about his cruel nature too late. No, this is recent. This is why she’s unwed. During the years after the Night King died, Sansa has given her heart to someone who broke it. Looking at Tormund, how her words meant nothing to him, he doesn’t know. Perhaps no one knows. She’s carried all that pain alone and Jon’s heart almost breaks too, the only thing keeping it together the firm clasp of his rage. Rage at this awful man who hurt her. Rage at himself, for where was he when she needed him? Where was he when she needed a protector? 

“Maybe I should’ve invited her," Tormund says. "Women like a man with a babe in his arms. Squirrel could use a mother. A strong mother who can teach him how to fight.”

“She’s married," Sansa says.

Tormund lowers his tankard slowly, eyes squinting. “The big woman? Ser Brienne of Tarth? _Married_?” 

“Yes. It was… About eight months ago. Right after we saw each other last. And she’s pregnant--"

"Pregnant?" Jon scrunches up his face. "Brienne of Tarth?"

Sansa looks only at Tormund. "She's five months along. I hear she's doing well."

“Is he nice?” Elbow on the table, Tormund leans in closer. “Her fellow. Is he a good one? Is she happy?”

“I hope so,” Sansa says and shares with Tormund the story about Brienne’s father’s dying wish and her deciding to wed, finally, while he still clung to life so he could pass away knowing House Tarth would live on.

Jon wants to believe Brienne was released from her vows. That Podrick and someone else guards Bran now, but Sansa chooses her words with such care, her eyes sometimes skirting Jon’s hand resting on the table without ever meeting his eyes, that he knows without a doubt that Bran is gone. That must’ve been what Tormund came to tell him, what, three-four years ago now? That’s how long his little brother has been dead and Jon didn’t even know. He didn’t want to know. (But he did know deep down, didn’t he? Kings never last long.)

He’ll ask Tormund later, can’t hear it from Sansa, can’t stand her cold eyes and her detached voice and the distance he knows she'll keep when he needs comfort--or, even worse, the impersonal touch she'll give out of duty that would disturb him more than distance ever could.

So he sits in silence, nursing his ale while Sansa talks on and on about things he can’t absorb. Words like _Davos, wildling prince, afternoon, Gendry, pox, raven, pregnant, sons, feast, disappointed_ float around him like morning mist, dispersing whenever he tries to grab one half-heartedly. Half-hearted because he can’t imagine he’ll like how those words would feel if he succeeds. Not until he realizes Sansa and Tormund are both smiling does Jon manage to shake himself out of his stupor.

“...time I visited, when Dickon was born, they clung to my skirts and wanted to hear everything about the Wildling King. _Everything_. I blame Sam. He’s been filling their ears with stories about you, a formidable wildling warrior who once wed a bear and became king of the Free Folk.”

“He told his children that I fucked a bear? Aren't they a bit young?"

“No,” Sansa says, laughing. “He made it into a sweet and funny story appropriate for children. He’s done that a lot. About all the things that have happened to us. And the stories about Tormund the Wildling King are their favorites. When they realized I know you… They would not leave me alone.” She shakes her head, still smiling. “Sam's raven said they’re _so_ disappointed they couldn’t come. They’ll resent their little brother or sister for years, trust me. Oh, and it said, if it’s any comfort, the boys will definitely force him and Gilly to name the babe Tormund if it’s another boy.”

“Good!” Tormund nods and raises his tankard. “Here’s to it being a boy!”

“I can't drink to that," Sansa says. "After Little Sam and Eddison and Dickon, she doesn’t need any more boys. I hope it’s a girl.”

“Eddison?” Jon blurts out without thinking.

"Sam's second son." Sansa still doesn't look at him. "Gilly was pregnant when you saw her last."

“Sam named his son _Eddison_?”

“Yes.” Cupping Jon's shoulder, Tormund leans in close and locks eyes with him. “Edd-i-son. After our friend. Edd. Remember him? Short and cranky, like you. But only half as pretty. Hah! Hmm. What's wrong?” Tormund rustles him. “You look like you need to take a shit. Is it the turnips? They always get my bowels going."

Jon shrugs, gliding out from under Tormund’s hand. “It's nothing. Sam said they would name the babe Jon. I was just surprised.”

Sansa exhales through her nose and rolls her lips into her mouth, hiding a derisive smirk behind her wine cup. “Was that before or after you helped an invader burn down the capital? No one names their sons Jon anymore." With one eyebrow arched, she takes a sip before resting her elbow on the table with the cup trapped nonchalantly between her fingers. "Do you know which name’s become popular, though? _Really_ popular.”

“Sansa?” he says with all the dignity of a petulant child.

“No.” She looks at him, then, something cruel dancing in her eyes, a thirst for the humiliation they both know her following words will douse him in. “Cersei. It’s especially popular among the smallfolk.”

“Cersei Lannister was a monster.”

“Not compared to your queen.”

Jon swallows, staring down at his plate. The bread has become soggy from the beer-soaked turnips. He’s eaten most of the ham and all of the spring greens but one lonely pea and he can’t even remember it.

“Cersei is remembered as a hero,” Sansa says in the aloof tone she usually reserved for Lord Baelish. “The queen who stood up against the tyrant. The queen who died in the Red Keep, because she would not abandon her people when she could’ve fled. All her old sins are forgotten. She’s the hero who destroyed the Sparrows who'd infested the city, the hero who fought against the Mad Queen against all odds to protect the people of Westeros from her fiery wrath and tragically lost. Jaime is quite popular too. The truth about why he killed King Aerys has become widely known and no one remembers him as the Kingslayer anymore. It’s funny, isn’t it. They were both terrible people who did terrible things, but history will remember them differently. All because of what you and your queen did. So, no, Jon, Sam didn’t name his son after you. Nor did he name the next one after you. He named him after his brother, whom your queen burned alive.”

A lump lodges itself in Jon’s throat; he swallows and swallows, tightening his trembling hands into fists beneath the table.

“Did you know?” Sansa says. “When you defended her in the godswood. When you asked us to trust her. Did you know what she was? You did, didn’t you. You wouldn’t look me in the eye. Because you knew. And you supported her anyway. Was she really _that_ pretty?”

Sansa's voice is low and calm, but it booms in his ears, drowning out the rest of the world. She sits far away enough that she couldn’t touch him even if she reached out, but she looms over him, casting him in the coldest shadow he's ever known. He wants to hurl the truth at her like a shield, but it wouldn’t be strong enough. Her words would rain down on him like arrows, splintering the wood until the shield shattered, burrowing into him much deeper than any dagger ever could. 

“Of course Sam didn’t name his child Jon,” she says and he wants to scream at her to _shut up-shut up-shut up_ , but that lump in his throat holds his tongue in an iron grip. “Did you honestly believe he wanted to be reminded every day of you and what you did? Only a fool would name their child after the man who--”

Chair toppling over behind him, Jon storms out of the room and leaves the rest of her sharp words hanging in the air, unheard.

* * *

* * *

The door slams shut behind Jon with such force the table vibrates, platters, pitchers, and tankards clattering. Sansa’s heart beats quicker than dragonfly wings. Her soul trembles; her blood sings. She can barely remember a word she said, as if her bitter old heart bound her sense and took hold of her tongue to lash and lash until she drove Jon away.

Tormund’s watching her silently. He’s not even eating or drinking. Sansa adjusts her cutlery, lining them perfectly on either side of the plate. Adjusts the position of the wine glass. Tops it off and swallows down a moderate amount. 

“You sound angry.”

“Yes.” She dabs the corners of her mouth with her napkin before draping it over her lap again. “I suppose I am.”

Tormund nods slowly, and there’s something in his narrowed eyes that puts her on edge. While not court-clever, Tormund possesses the cleverness of the wild. Those keen instincts honed by years of survival in harsh conditions. In some ways it's sharper.

She’s never told him how she used to feel. Only Drustan and Meera know.

Sansa folds her hands and straightens her posture.

“I didn’t know you were this angry," Tormund says.

“I’m sorry for losing my temper. You’re my guest and--”

“Bah. We’re family. Families fight. I’ve been to many family gatherings that ended with broken bones and black eyes and fingers cut off. Even a murder or two. This was just a little spat. A horsefly's bite.” He scoots his chair closer to her. “You’ve not told him what you did for him?”

“I’ve not told him anything. And neither have you, have you? He didn’t even know about Sam’s children.”

“It should be you.”

“And how do you think that would go?”

“Just be nicer.”

A if he truly believes it hadn’t occurred to her, as if he truly believes it’s that easy, Tormund said it so sincerely Sansa can’t meet his warm blue eyes. She ducks her head, staring down at the napkin. She embroidered them herself. On lonely nights, her first year as queen. Direwolf sigil after direwolf sigil in gray wool against pale linen.

“Sansa, he came all this way.”

_He came too late. He came for you. For Squirrel. For Arya and Bran and what’s happened the past five years. Not for me. Never for me._

Sansa licks her lips and swallows down her pride. “I don’t think I can be nicer. I can’t even look at him without…” Her thumb finds the palm of her hand to soothe it; she lets it. “You should go after him. He needs someone who loves him.”

(Someone he loves in return.)

* * *

* * *

If he didn’t know a battle took place down here years ago, Jon wouldn’t have guessed. Everything has been restored, repaired, cleaned up. He walks past rows and rows of ancient Starks, dreading the appearance of a familiar face that never comes, and finally stops in front of the man he once believed to be his father. Like so many times before, he gazes up at Ned Stark with a question in his heart, with a need for guidance. But the stone version of Ned has nothing to give but the display of light dancing across his features from the candles burning in the crypts. No answers, no forgiveness, no advice. No commands.

 _Protect your sisters_ , he once told Jon. _Honor your brothers._

“I did,” he whispers to the shadows. “I tried. And it cost me everything.

 _It cost you nothing,_ they whisper back. _Nothing you ever had. Nothing that was ever meant for you._

Jon passes the statue of the woman he learned was his mother. No candle burns in her hand; he doesn’t change that. What kind of woman was she, anyway? Rhaegar had a wife and children. Jon carries nothing but deceit and betrayal in his veins.

He drags himself up the stairs, through the door, out into the courtyard with a bowed head so that his long dark hair falls over his face like curtains. The sound of wildlings enjoying food and drink and serving maids flows from the open doors of the Great Hall. Servants bustle between kitchen and well and food stores, preparing for tomorrow’s feast. No one pays him any mind, this wildling man who’s unrecognizable without Longclaw at his hip. 

A giggle followed by a familiar burly chuckle draws his attention to a shadow-cloaked nook. The light spilling from a near-full moon hits the top of Tormund’s ginger mane just barely. He’s found his maid, then. Jon walks on. With any luck, he’ll get his saddlebags and be gone without being seen by either Tormund or Sansa. Without being stopped.

As he hits the stairs leading to the great keep, however, footfalls reach him. Stop him. He turns around with a sigh, one hand on the banister.

“There you are. I looked all over for you.”

“I was in the crypts.”

“Ah, never go down there. It’s full of ghosts.” Tormund shudders. “You leaving?”

“She doesn’t want me here.”

Tormund grunts, nodding. “Well, see you when I get back, then. We’ll have some sour goat’s milk and talk. I’m, uh”--he nods at the maid who waits across the courtyard, swaying like a young girl in love despite looking closer to forty--”busy tonight.”

“You’re not stopping me?”

“I could tell you a hundred stories about how angry womenfolk can get. How they want to hiss and scratch at you like a wildcat and you just have to let them until they’ve tired themselves out and you can pet them again, make it all good. I could tell you you’re a selfish twat, because you are. I could tell you I'm sick of pretending one of you doesn't exist when I visit the other, but…” Tormund shrugs, exhaling loudly. “I love you, Jon, you know I do. But if you want to stay burrowed so badly, I’ll let you. I’m done coaxing this scared little rabbit from the snow.”

He pats Jon on the back and jogs back to the maid, wraps his arm around her thick waist, and leads her away into the night. He might still love Brienne deep down, and he might’ve lost his woman half a year ago, but that would never stop him from moving forward. Tormund knows loss just as well as Jon does. He knows it better still. He lost his first wife, his children, his brothers and sisters and mother and father too. He lost everyone and still he’s always moving forward.

In a rare moment of clarity, Jon sees his path stretching out before him. His way forward. He’ll always linger in the past unless he says goodbye to it. Properly. That's what Tormund meant when he said he needed to go back to move forward. Jon must visit all his old favorite spots in Winterfell and relive his memories and kiss them goodbye, and he does. The godswood where he still hears his siblings' laughter from snowball fights and monsters-and-maidens and bathing in the hot springs during summer snows. The broken tower where a kitchen girl gave him his first kiss and let him touch her budding breasts before he bolted, terrified that it was enough to make her pregnant before a laughing Theon explained it took a bit more than that. The glass gardens where he and Arya snuck inside to nick strawberries before Septa Mordane chased them away while yelling about how they were meant for Lady Sansa’s nameday celebration. The courtyard where ser Rodrik taught him, Robb, and Theon sword fighting while Arya spied on them from afar and mimicked all their movements with a stick. The Great Hall where the lords of the North cheered for him and called him king...

He even peers into his former office, expecting it to be Sansa’s now, to be full of delicate vases holding spring flowers and a basket of yarn and a shelf with her favorite books. But she must’ve chosen a different chamber for her office, for this one seems to be a council room with a great oak table surrounded by chairs--and even a throne, standing at the head of the table. Modest and beautiful, like its queen.

 _Maybe she has a crown too_ , he thinks bitterly before forcing away the feeling.

Tonight he will remember only the good, only the precious memories of his childhood that sustained him when he first joined the Night’s Watch. That weakened him. Compromised his resolve over and over because he never killed Jon Snow to become a true brother of the Night’s Watch. Not really. But he will tonight.

Once he’s said goodbye to it all, he’ll shed that part of himself, leave it to decay in the courtyard of Winterfell, and ride away a new man.

* * *

* * *

Sansa’s eyes burn; the numbers in the ledger dance before her eyes, refusing to be counted. After a yawn so long soothing tears fill her eyes, she lays down the quill and stretches out her stiff body. When she was Lady of Winterfell and Jon was King in the North, she took care of the castle the way a wife would have. The way the lady of the castle should. Now she’s queen with no wife of her own, no helpful sister by her side, and, even though she has two stewards to help her manage internal and external affairs, she still shoulders many of the duties. In a few months, she’ll turn five and twenty and Winterfell will come alive with a big celebration she does not want. But queens have duties and invitations have already flown all over Westeros. So she reads through all the paperwork, approves or rejects or modifies suggestions, scrutinizes the menu and the seating chart and the entertainment and the cost--and why shouldn’t she? It’s not as if she has a family waiting for her to leave the office and join them by the hearth for storytelling about a princess cursed to take the shape of a bear from sunup to sundown until a brave Wildling King broke that curse with a true love's kiss.

When her mother was her age, she was married with three children.

Sansa closes the ledger, blows out the candles, and sits in the dark for a moment, resting her eyes and collecting herself, before heading to her chamber. The wildlings still sup in the Great Hall, their singing filling the courtyard even though they’ll feast again tomorrow. The castle always comes alive when they visit, the maids all atwitter about all those feral wildling men who seem exotic and exciting compared to the ordinary northerners they've flirted with one time too many. Tonight few will sleep alone, and tomorrow night fewer still, and in a month's time, Maester Wolkan's supply of moontea will dwindle.

Maybe she should follow their example, find herself a wildling man after all... 

_You could ask him._

(He looks like one now.)

 _No_. She'll never ask him, doesn't _want_ to ask him, and it's not as if he'll still be here come morning. In fact, he's probably already halfway to Castle Black by now. Telling Davos when he comes tomorrow that, despite her age, despite her position, she acted the child, lost her temper, and scared off the boy he once loved like a son and has longed to see for years now...? Oh, she’s looking forward to that. What fun. But at least she'll do it. _She's_ not a coward.

Unless Tormund convinced him to stay… 

No. All Jon ever does is leave her.

* * *

* * *

Part of him hates the idea of stripping Jon Snow’s chamber clean and trade it for goods he’ll need in the coming years. He doesn’t deserve any of it. But he hates the idea of everything staying right where it is, gathering dust and nourishing old memories, even more. (A dark voice in his mind whispered that he could drag it out to the field and burn it all, burn the past, but he suppressed it with a shudder.) No, he’ll trade it at Castle Black. Or hand it out to the families living in his cabins, if his conscience pesters him too much.

With the overstuffed saddlebags waiting by the door, Jon lays Longclaw on the bed. The maids will find it tomorrow. Once they tell Sansa, she can figure out what it means on her own. He won’t say goodbye to her. They already said goodbye on the pier, and he’d rather carry that farewell in his heart than whatever ugliness will transpire if they make a second attempt.

He steps back, taking in the room one last time. This is it, then. Farewell. The death of Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell.

The door creaks behind him. _Sansa_. Breath caught in his throat, he spins around. _Oh_.

His shoulders slump as he breathes out his relief at the pretty maid curtsying sweetly in the doorway.

“Good evening, Your Grace. Do you need help undressing for the night?”

“No.” He stretches his mouth into a polite smile. “I was just leaving.”

“So soon? I reckoned maybe...” She nudges the door closed and, slowly, undoes the front-laces of her bodice while sauntering toward him. “It’s so cold in here without a fire in the hearth, ain’t it? Perhaps I could help His Grace get warm in a different way?”

She licks her lips, pushing out her half-exposed breasts, pushing him back against the wall with each step she takes. She smells like flowers and ale, sickly-sweet. Jon squeezes himself past her, shoulders his bags, and opens the door, nodding at her to get out. She gives a pout that should be adorable (but he only finds childish) and a look that says she concedes, for now, and heads outside while re-lacing her bodice. Then Jon hears a gasp followed by a mumbled _Your Grace_ and the patter of heels quickly moving away.

Jon’s eyes slide shut. _Fuck._

Outside stands Sansa, watching him dully. Not a word passes her lips; she only admonishes him with a shake of her head before turning on her heel to walk away and he should let her. He should let her believe that he got so bleeding horny he couldn’t help but fuck a maid before he left Winterfell forever. He should let her walk away from him believing that he’s the basest of men. He should let her detest him. But his body moves on its own, hand grabbing her wrist and lips saying her name with such desperation he’d melt from shame had he been able to care about anything other than making sure this isn’t her final impression of him.

She spins around, glaring down at his fingers around her wrist, and he snatches his hand back as if her skin were scorching.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he says. “I didn’t.”

Sansa’s top lip curls disdainfully. “I hope you were careful. If she gives birth to the former King in the North’s bastard in nine month’s time, then--”

“You’re worried about being _usurped_?”

She throws a glance up and down the hallway before striding into his chambers and waiting for him to join her with the sharp angle of her chin in the air and the frostiness in her eyes chilling him to the bone. It’s a small miracle Jon manages to follow and close the door behind them rather than turning to ice where he stands.

“Do you think it’s an unfounded worry?” she says. “You should know better than anyone the lengths people will go to if they believe it'll earn them even a modicum of power. If Freista births a son in nine month’s time and tells the world he’s yours, how long until someone decides to use it to his advantage because he doesn’t like the rulers who sit on the two thrones of Westeros? Thrones one could argue your son is the heir to. Are you _truly_ that incapable of learning from history?”

“But everyone hates me! Who would support my son?”

“Everyone hated Aerys. And yet Daenerys found herself with many supporters when she wanted to invade Westeros.” Sansa shakes her head and licks her lips, chest moving with labored breaths. “I thought I knew you and you just keep proving me wrong. I thought you had left, and instead you were in here all along, seducing a girl who--”

“I didn’t!” 

“I’m not stupid. I know what it looks like.”

“Is _that_ what it looks like?” He points at the bed where Longclaw rests on undisturbed furs with the pommel propped up on smooth pillows, the sword belt curled up snake-like beside it. “Does that bed look _fucked_ in?”

“You don’t need a bed.”

“What?” Jon blinks at her, mouth agape.

“You don’t need a bed. Or are you telling me you’ve only ever been intimate in beds?”

She asks it as if she speaks from experience, but that can't be right. Sansa Stark would never take a lover. He disperses that train of though with a shake of his head and gets back to the argument, digests what she's saying until he hears the command in it.

"Are you ordering me to be childless my entire life? To protect your rule. Really?"

"Of course not! You can bed whomever you like, Jon. You can have as many children as you want. I just wanted to know whether or not I shall prepare myself for the prospect of _your_ child being born and raised beneath _my_ roof in nine months' time. That's not too much to ask, is it."

Jon inhales deeply, the fight leaving him with the exhale. “I turned her away. Believe me or don’t believe me. It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving and you’ll see the truth for yourself in nine months. There’ll be no babe. At least not one of mine.”

He adjusts the strap of the saddlebags and turns around, but then she opens her mouth again. Then she speaks with a whisper-thin voice that halts his steps to a stop.

“I used to. Believe you. I believed _in_ you. I trusted you. I supported you. I was loyal to you. And for what? You threw it all away.” 

Her words pull him around, pull him back to her, soften his heart and his voice and his eyes. “Sansa, I didn't throw it away. You have to understand--”

“I understand. You had your _reasons_. You did what you thought you had to do. But you betrayed our family. You betrayed all the people who chose you for their king. You offered no explanations or apologies when they would’ve mattered, when they could’ve healed what you damaged. And once it was time to rebuild the North and repair relationships and move forward, you hid and let the rest of us clean up the mess you and your queen made. Your excuses don’t matter. Your intentions don’t matter. They won’t erase all these years and the marks they left. And you’ve not changed. One confrontation and you were running away again. And maybe that’s for the best. If this is who you truly are, if you don’t understand that you need to be _better_ , then maybe that is for the best.”

Jon's nostrils flare. “Aye, that’s what you want, isn’t it? It’s what you’ve always wanted. For me to go--”

“You’re the one who ignored my ravens! You’re the one who disappeared the moment Tormund and I decided we should turn the castles along the Wall into trading posts. You think I didn’t notice? You think it’s not obvious what it means? You abandoned _me_! You _abandoned_ me! And you have the _nerve--_ ”

She sucks in a shuddering breath, trapping the rest of her accusation behind pressed-thin lips. Then she stands there, wide-eyed and quiet, composing herself until her heaving chest calms and her flushed cheeks cool and her glossy eyes dry and leave her ice-smooth and winter-still again.

“I am a Tully,” she says and she needs no crown to look the queen. “Family. Duty. Honor. Family comes first and I’ve tried putting family first, but my family did not want me. So I do my duty. I do the work. I do what’s expected of me. I rule to the best of my ability. And I do it alone. It’s not been easy. Running away and hiding and letting everyone else clean up the mess, _that_ would’ve been easy. But it wouldn’t have been very honorable, would it?”

With one last withering glare, she leaves him without looking back, without saying goodbye. She doesn’t even close the door behind her, as if she expects him to walk through it and never come back. As if she’s telling him to. Daring him to be the coward she sees when she looks upon him. Perhaps it’s time he proves her right, then. For once. Perhaps he should stay a scared little rabbit hiding in the snow--and yet the saddlebags slide off his shoulder and land on the floor with a thud, and yet Jon’s knees buckle and he sinks down on the bed, staring at the open doorway letting in the soft glow of torchlights from the hallway.

He hears Sansa’s door open and close. The castle is so quiet he even hears her footsteps moving across the floor in her chambers. He hears something scraping against the flagstones. A chair as she sits down in front of her vanity to undo her hair, perhaps, but he shouldn’t listen.

Inhaling deeply, Jon gets to his feet and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

The saddlebags stay on the floor.

* * *

Jon stands outside the door, counting his breaths, counting his heart-beats, heavy like a sword at the end of a battle. She never invited him to stay, was pushing him away, and still the flagstones of Winterfell lie beneath the worn soles of his worn boots.

It might’ve been her way of asking him to stay for the feast. To be brave and face the people he disappointed. To be some version of Jon Snow, if only for an evening, rather than the craven little shit he’s become.

She’s inside the small dining chamber now, the one with the tapestry, breaking her fast with Tormund and the babe. He hears the cooing through the solid wood. The clink of cups and forks. Unless they went to the stables and caught him sleeping in Shadow’s stall, neither knows he’s still here. He could still leave. Then he wouldn’t have to see the exasperation in her face upon learning he stuck around.

The door opens. Jon jumps, biting back a yelp. The morning sun shines in through the window behind her, casting a halo of golden glow in hair she wears loose today. No bun, no braid, just a river of copper flowing past her shoulders, framing a pale face with petal-soft lips forming a surprised little o.

“So,” he says with an awkward, crooked smile and a voice that doesn’t quite hold, “any breakfast left for me?”

Her eyes move over his face, his beard, his hair. She tilts her head to the side and reaches out for him and his heart that’s already racing now beats so fast it might take off like a bird and fly away.

But she doesn't touch him; she plucks something from his hair and holds it out in front of him. A bit of hay, bent in an angle. He accepts it from her hand; their fingers don’t meet.

She walks away from him, then, for what feels like the thousandth time since he returned to Winterfell, and he doesn’t know how to read her.

Tormund, though, greets him with a cheer and a big bear hug that makes Jon’s back crack. And as the wildling king gushes about Jon staying for his son’s feast, the big man even sheds a tear of joy. Jon can stay for him. Even if Sansa wants to be a wildcat and hiss and scratch at him with her sharp claws, he can endure it if it makes Tormund happy. 

So Jon settles down by the breakfast table and fills his plate with cheese, and slices of bread spread with preserves. He leaves the eggs be. Sansa only eats soft-boiled, and Tormund eats them however he receives them. Jon _can_ eat them soft-boiled. In a pinch. He can eat almost anything in a pinch. But he has to be starving to stand that slithering gooey texture coating his tongue and sliding down his throat.

But as Jon tucks into his breakfast, the door opens once more and a servant steps inside with a shallow wicker bowl in his hands.

“Hard-boiled eggs, m’lord,” he says with a bow and leaves the bowl on the table.

Jon picks up an egg. It's brown and still warm from the cooking pot. Slowly, a smile spreads on his face until he's beaming. Then he hits the egg against the tabletop so that the shell cracks, and starts peeling it clean.


	5. Family Comes First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank everyone for all your lovely comments so far! They’re really encouraging and sweet and interesting and, lbr, occasionally pretty funny. Especially your reactions to the egg made me laugh :D Anyway, I enjoy hearing your thoughts <3  
> Since this fic is a bit different from my usual thing, if you have any questions or worries please leave a comment and I’ll reply as best as I can without spoiling stuff. One thing remains the same, though: it'll probably be fairly long and we’ll get a happily ever after in the end. Thanks again!

Jon stares at the blank parchment his hand refuses to fill with the words swirling in his mind. Sentences and sentiments war, time, and distance have sundered into fragments he doesn’t know how to mend back together. Where would he even start? He left them be for too long and now chasms have gro--

_Crunch._

Jon closes his eyes and breathes out slowly, silently. Opens them again, reaches within for the latest sentence he tried cobbling together before putting quill to parchment.

_Crunch. Smack. Smack. Crunch._

He rolls his shoulders. Clenches his left hand into a fist. Maybe he should congratulate him on his family. That’s a good start. Something positive that shows he's not upset they named the babe Eddison. Edd did save his life while Jon just ran right past--

_Smack. Crunch. Chomp._

_Seven bleeding hells._ Jon eases out another breath. Where was he? Edd. Right. The babe. It’s fine. Jon understands--unless he thinks Jon is trying to make him feel guilty, that mentioning Eddison is a jab--

_Crunch._

Jon spins around and scowls at Tormund and his stupid crumb-sprinkled beard. “Do you mind?”

Tormund takes another bite of his oatcake. “Mind what?” 

“I can’t focus! Do you really need to chew _that_ loudly?”

Tormund glides off the workbench he’s perched on, eyes round and eyebrows high. For a beat he just stares at Jon, then he shakes his head and holds up his half-eaten oatcake. “This is my fourth. If it annoyed you so much, you could’ve told me three cakes ago and I would’ve stopped eating. But, no, not Jon Snow. No, you stew for half an hour and then you boil over and make a mess. Now I”--he pokes Jon in the chest--“am annoyed with _you_.”

He shoves the cake back into his mouth, smacking and chewing loudly, pointedly, and hops back up on the table, all without breaking eye contact.

“It’s no way of life, trapping all your feelings in your little body until it’s so full you explode. Just tell people how you feel when you feel it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Yes it is. Just use those pretty lips of yours.”

“It’s not,” Jon says, quietly.

He barely spent any time with Sam when he could. All that time apart, and then Sam was right here, at Winterfell, with fears and worries and joys and stories to share--and Jon avoided him. And now Sam is friends with Tormund and Gendry and even bloody Sansa. She is closer to him than Jon now. She has met his sons; once she has daughters, they might arrange a union and be family for true.

The sunlight slanting in through the window pales the parchment into brilliant white. It stings his eyes. He squeezes them shut.

“We should go to him,” Tormund says. “Your Sam. Day after the feast. We’ll grab Davos and ride south, visit Sam and Gendry. Eh? Give those little lordlings new stories about the Free Folk. But no Tarth. We’ll avoid Tarth.”

“That’s quite a trip. You’d be gone for months. What about your kingdom?”

Tormund shrugs. “It can handle itself for a while. It has before. For thousands of years.”

“I don’t know,” Jon mumbles, spreading his hands out over Wolkan’s desk, and hangs his head. “Let me think about it.”

A knock interrupts them. The door glides open and in comes the maester, his robes sweeping over the flagstones and his chain clinking softly.

“Your Grace.” He bows his head. “If you don’t mind, I need access--”

“I’m not a king.”

Wolkan blinks, mouth open. “My prince,” he stammers and Jon can’t help but bristle, “what title should I--”

“Just… nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

Jon stalks out of the room, leaving Tormund to explain that there’s no raven scroll to take to the rookery, leaving Wolkan to put back the parchment, quill, ink, and blotting paper Jon left unused. Oh, he knows he’s sullen and childish, but he can’t stand it. _Prince_. He curls his hands into tight fists, breathing heavily through flared nostrils. Over the years he has wondered. How widespread is that little fact? He’s assumed everyone knows, that Varys and Sansa’s combined efforts efficiently spread the news all over Westeros. In his heart, though, he was foolish enough to hope that perhaps it got contained. That Varys didn’t have time to do much before Daenerys turned him into ashes. That Sansa never told a soul besides Tyrion. But of course she did.

 _Targaryen_. That is a stain he’ll never be able to wash off no matter how hard he scrubs.

“If there’s one thing I learned,” Tormund says, catching up to him, “it’s that you southerners like rules. You like being told who to marry, where to live, when to get up, when to eat, when to take a shit. All of it. Without rules you don’t know what to do or say. You just stand there, feet stuck in the mud, waiting for someone to pull you out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Titles. They all call me Your Grace and bow and all that fancy nonsense. At first I just laughed, but now I let them. It puts them at ease, see, bless their little hearts. You need to give them a title to call you. They don't know what you are.”

“Why are we pretending I'm anything at all? I'm nothing! I can’t stand all this courtly horseshit. Your Grace. My lord. My prince. It doesn’t mean anything. They don’t mean it. They all think I’m a traitor. They all _hate_ me.”

“They don’t hate you. Does it look like they hate you?”

“Sansa said everyone hates me.”

“No she didn’t.”

“She did! You were there! She said all of Westeros hated me.”

Tormund grabs Jon’s arm, pulling him to a stop, and dips his head down to look him in the eye. “Maybe that’s what you heard, but it’s not what she said.”

“She didn’t have to.”

Jon yanks his arm from Tormund’s grip and storms on, stalking down familiar hallways where servants and guards all stop to bow. It’s Sansa. She always was a stickler for decorum and now she’s made certain people know the man with the long black curls and the bushy beard and the wildling clothes is their former king and a Targaryen prince and should be shown respect whether they like it or not. They stare too--and whisper. Especially the maids. They huddle close, their eyes flicking between each other and him as they gossip, and then they run off, laughing at him.

But then a man--a _king_ \--foolish and weak enough to give his own crown to a woman he just met because she was so pretty _is_ rather laughable, isn’t it? If that’s what they believe it’s a wonder anyone can get out the words _Your Grace_ without guffawing. He should be impressed, really. He’s a joke now. Weak. Pitiful. The Targaryen who chose his aunt, who chose fire and blood, over the people he called family. Maybe that maid came to his chamber for that. To see how easy it would be to get Aegon Targaryen on his knees so she could run back to her friends and laugh about it. Maybe that's what they're laughing about now.

The echoes of their giggles nip at Jon’s heels, grate in his ears, fill his head until it’s all he can hear.

* * *

Crisp northern winds flow over the plains outside Winterfell, stroke the grass this way and that in undulating waves. Jon lets it wash fragmented thoughts and irksome titters from his mind, lets Shadow carry him wherever she pleases. A creature of the true North, she’s not built for stables and stalls. She’s built for climbing mountain paths and roaming the grassy valleys cradled by the craggy rocks. She’s built for drinking in streams and grazing fresh grass and nibbling at sprouts and bark mushrooms. And when she sleeps it’s with the solid earth as her floor and the starry sky as her ceiling.

She stops by a mere that stretches out, shallow and wide, far enough that he can’t see its end. Jon dismounts and, while she grazes and drinks, lies down by the water and dips his fingers in the still surface, submerges his whole hand, keeps it there until he can’t stand the cold. Then he rolls over on his back and rests his cool hand on his forehead, rests his eyes on the thin clouds drifting across the sky, rests his ears in the whispering sounds of the wind caressing yellow grass and budding branches.

Fed and watered, Shadow pads over to him and lies down by his side. He shifts, leaning his back against her body, his head against her neck, the way they so often lie together.

“How would you like to see the south?” He runs his fingers through her mane, picking seeds caught in the soot-colored lengths. “We could ride to…” Horn Hill? The Red Keep? The Citadel? A different place entirely?

He doesn’t even know where Sam lives.

Shadow bends her neck and rests her muzzle on his shoulder.

“No? You want to go back to the Iselind? Yeah, I do too. And we need to get the cabin done.”

The world has changed. The seasons flow like the tides, rhythmic and reliable. In a couple of months, summer will spread its warmth across the lands and thaw even most of the snow south of the mountains from which the Iselind flows. But then autumn returns and new snow with it. If he goes back tomorrow, goes back to work, he might have the cabin ready before the first snow.

Then it’s time to find a family for it, and it's time to find a new place where he can build again.

* * *

  
  


Long before he reaches the gates, Jon sees her standing on the battlements, the red of her hair a banner against the blue skies. Once upon a time, that banner meant home to him. It meant family. A brief notion quickly shattered by the realities of war which revealed the performative nature of their familial bond. _Family. Duty. Honor._ Ever the good girl, she did her Tully duty and put him first, but when duty is the foundation… Oh, he knows well how difficult it is to conjure love, then. Small wonder she has none for him now.

At this distance he can’t discern her features, and yet he knows that for a beat of a heart their eyes connect. He knows it because he feels it deep in his stomach. That burning swoop he’s felt around her so often he thinks of her even when he feels it for a different reason. Then she leaves. By the time he rides through the gates she’s on the balcony, deep in conversation with Tormund as if she never stood on the battlements at all.

As if she only stood there to wait for his return.

No, he shouldn’t delude himself. They were two lonely people hoping the familiarity they found with one another could fill that aching void loss had left in their chests. It never grew beyond that. This morning's hard-boiled egg was a gesture, yes. A sign that he’s welcome to stay for it’s the right thing to do. The good girl’s duty. It doesn’t mean she _wants_ him here. If she wanted him here, wouldn’t she have reached out to do or say something, _anything_ , to move forward from last night’s harsh words?

But then she _is_ busy with the feast. It’ll begin at dusk. Tormund will show off the prize pig, receive gifts and compliments, probably hold a speech, and then hand over the prince to his milk-mother, and let the ale and sour goat’s milk flow as evening bleeds into night.

Will she talk to him at the feast?

(Will _anyone_? Maybe Davos. Unless he hates Jon too.)

Jon dismounts and the stable boy is there instantly. Before the war, he reached Jon’s shoulder. Now he’s taller and soft down covers his chin and upper lip and when he calls Jon “Your Grace” it’s in the deeper voice of a man nearly grown.

“Oskar, was it?” Jon says and the boy lights up at being remembered, blue eyes glittering and mouth forming an open-mouthed breathless smile. “Take good care of her for me.”

“I will.” Oskar bows. “I will, Your Grace.”

At least there’s _one_ person who doesn’t hate him. _Well_ , Jon thinks as he sees Tormund waving happily at him to join them on the balcony, _two people._ Sansa not included. While she does watch him ascend the stairs for two steps, she quickly ignores him and sweeps her gaze over the busy courtyard instead.

“Ah, good! You’re finally back,” Tormund says. “We’ve been discussing your little problem.”

All the blood in Jon’s body rushes to the pit of his stomach. His hand shoots out to grip the railing, his ears ringing as if someone struck him with a wooden sword. Surely, Tormund wouldn’t. Not even he has that vague a perception of boundaries.

“Tormund is right,” Sansa says, but Jon can barely hear it over the pounding of his racing heart. “You might not care about titles, but the people around you do.”

 _Oh, thank the gods._ Jon sags from relief and he turns toward the railing, leaning both forearms on it as if he’s casually observing his surroundings.

“You used to be their king, Jon. You’re the man who led them into war against the Night King. They'll never forget that. They’re trying to show you their respect and by dismissing them, you’re disrespecting them. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“ _Used_ to be, aye. I’m not anymore. So why should they call me that?”

“You’re a prince,” Sansa says and Jon clenches his teeth. “Or, at the very least, the Lord of Dragonstone. It’s yours. There’s a family tending to it, but Bran made sure it would always be available to you, in case you ever decided to do anything about that pardon we wrote you. Which you would’ve known, had you bothered reading any of my ravens.”

Jon nods, pursing his lips. “So everyone knows, then? What I am?”

“I tried stopping it. Before it reached the North. But it was too late. When I came back from King’s Landing, everyone knew. Varys had worked diligently and the Citadel--”

“Varys?” Jon stands up properly. “ _You’re_ the one who spread it. Even though you promised me--"

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” He turns fully to her. “ _Protect_ me? By sharing a secret that could get me _killed_? Aye, that’s good work. Well done, Sansa.”

“She wouldn’t have killed you; she loved you.”

Jon huffs out a joyless laugh. “You think she loved me more than she loved that throne? You’re not that naive, are you?” 

She looks at Tormund, lips parted helplessly rather than spouting a clever retort for she has none. Because she’s not naive. Not anymore.

“Just admit it. You cared about the North, not me. You were trying to protect the North, not me, and my life was a cost you were willing to pay or you wouldn’t have been so fucking reckless. But you were. From the moment we rode in through the gates, you were reckless and snide. You couldn’t have made it more clear that you didn’t want her in--”

“I welcomed her into my home. I was polite and--”

“Aye, and what a warm welcome that was.”

Sansa lifts her chin, looking down at him with cool eyes, only the pink of her cheeks betraying her discomfort.

“If you’re so bleeding clever,” he says, “if you learned so much from Cersei and Lord Baelish and the rest of them, then why couldn’t you have pretended to like her? I thought I could count on you! I thought we were fighting _together_. But we never were, were we? You never cared about me. _Y_ ou only ever cared about--”

“They called us _savages_.”

Sansa’s eyes flash at him, so intense he shuts his mouth with a click and swallows. She steps closer, closer, pushing him into the little nook where they’ve argued many times before, where wood and game hanging up to dry swallow their hushed, angry voices, contain them, shield them as if the rest of Winterfell doesn’t exist while they erupt and tremble.

“They wanted to build a new Wall. One at the Neck, to trap us up here with the rest of the wildlings. They wanted to overthrow Bran and burn our ports, our ships, burn every last connection between us and them. Your support of the Dragon Queen made House Stark the most hated House in all of Westeros. Our men helping a monster burn down the entire capital! Our men killing and raping innocent people! Our men! Even Houses who had been sympathetic to our cause, who thought the Freys and the Lannisters had committed unforgivable sins, hated us because of our involvement in the massacre.”

The force of her words has carried her forward; now she stands so close to him their panting breaths mingle together and he can smell the rosewater on her skin. A shiver runs through her; she pulls back, straightens her posture, catches her breath. But her eyes still glow like ice under the distant heat of a winter sun.

“Bran and his council defended themselves. I had to protect the North and House Stark--and _everyone_ wanted to advise me on what to do. How to save our reputation and mend our relationship with the southern houses. And do you know what most people told me? Do you know what _Tyrion_ told me? That I should put it all on you. All the blame. ‘Blame the Targaryen,’ they told me. ‘Blame his blood. Wash the North clean of that filth. Wash yourself clean. It’s what’s best for the North. It’s what’s best for you.’ That’s what they told me. It was the most pervasive rumor, after all. The one most easy to believe. That you fell for your aunt and betrayed the North and everyone you loved. That you were fire and blood all along, and only waited for the right opportunity to unleash it upon the world. A Targaryen cannot be trusted--and neither could you.”

She turns her head from him, looking out over her domain, and when she speaks, her voice sounds like the wind winding through the balconies and walkways, light and breathy, ephemeral.

“Perception and memory, they’re funny things. Easily molded. Littlefinger taught me that. Ask anyone in the North what happened in the Great Hall when Daenerys Targaryen first came to Winterfell, and they will tell you that she threatened to feed me to her dragons when I asked her whether she had brought any food. It’s not true. Not literally, but it was so very easy to make people remember her veiled threats as explicit. Just a few suggestions, a few whispers in the right ears. And now that’s what everyone remembers. They remember her using her dragons to scare the smallfolk over and over because no one would fall to their knees and worship her. They remember her spoiling her dragons with food while we had to ration. They remember her commanding Gendry to become lord of Storm’s End and ensure the Stormlands stayed loyal to her, or she’d burn him alive like she did with Sam’s brother and father.

“No one even knew what she’d done to the Tarlys at that point, but it doesn’t matter. People still remember it that way. I made sure of it. I made sure they remembered everything she did as far worse than it was. I paid singers to spread songs across Westeros about the king who lost his crown because the Dragon Queen took him prisoner and threatened to burn everything and everyone he loved unless he obeyed her every command. A king who stayed by her side, seemingly loyal, until he finally had the opportunity to end her. A little too late, yes. But he did end her. He plunged a dagger into her heart and saved the rest of Westeros from burning. It took a lot of work and effort and time and gold, but I did it. You’re now known as the king who bent and bowed and cowered. The king who played the game so cautiously, so poorly, he didn’t stop the conqueror until after she’d done the most terrible thing imaginable. All for fear of seeing his people burn.”

Chin still held high, she looks back at him then with tears brimming in her eyes and fury burning pink on her cheeks.

“You’re not remembered as a hero. Children won't play King Jon. Fathers won't name their sons after you. But at least you’re not remembered as a traitor. It was the best I could do. So, _please,_ Jon, tell me again how I have never cared about you.”

A tear spills over and she wipes it away with a brush of her fingertips, so quick he wouldn’t have caught it hadn’t he been so focused on her face and her voice he’s aware of nothing else. Then she whips around in yet another dramatic exit while he stares at her unbound copper hair dancing against her back from the force of her strides. A servant walks up to her, exchanges a few words, and then directs his steps at Jon and Tormund. Ten steps later, he bows first at Tormund and then at Jon before telling them the midday meal is served in the small dining chamber.

Jon chooses to watch his silver head as he descends the stairs instead of searching the walkways for copper while Sansa’s fervent words sink into him and make a home in his heart.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he mumbles to Tormund, hand back on the railing. 

“You didn’t want me to talk about her.”

“No. Yesterday. Or today.”

Tormund shifts his stance, leaning in a bit, prompting Jon to look up at him. “If I tell you everything she tells me, and I tell her everything you tell me, then how will you two ever learn how to talk to each other. _Hm_?”

Jon exhales loudly, nodding. "Yeah."

“Now, come along, my little crow. Time to eat. I’m starving.”

“You had four cakes only two hours ago.”

“Yes,” Tormund says, walking backwards away from Jon. “And now I’ll fill my belly again. And tonight I’ll fill it once more at the splendid feast.” He slaps his tummy. “What a life for a wildling boy who grew up always hunting for his next meal, eh?”

Then he turns around and walks with a spring in his step toward the guesthouse to get his boy. Tapping his thumb against the railing, Jon moves his attention between Tormund and the door leading into the keep where the set table is waiting for them. Where Sansa is. Then he takes a deep breath and moves his feet.

She’s already seated when he walks inside. No traces of her outburst remains, face back to its normal color and eyes blank but dry. Yesterday he chose a seat as far away from her as he could without being ridiculous; today he chooses the one next to her. He keeps his eyes on her, turns his body toward her, showing her in every wordless way he can that he wants to ask her something. If she’ll allow it.

It takes her a breath, two, three, of staring down at her empty plate. But then her lashes flutter and she looks up at him, almost demurely, and he takes it as permission.

“Why?” he asks, softly. “Why didn’t you let everyone hate me? It would’ve been easier.”

Sansa sighs, eyes darting to the tapestry before returning to his face. “I couldn’t. Only I get to hate you.”

Perhaps he should be offended, but there’s a petulant note in her voice, a childish possessiveness, and in some strange way he’s never felt more accepted by her. He's never felt more like family. A smile grows on his face, wider and wider, until he manages to lure the smallest, sweetest, most beautiful smile from her. A smile that is short and faint, aye, and ends much too quickly when it transforms into a glare. But even that glare has a softness to it he treasures in secret.

“I can live with being the king who cowered,” he says. “I can think of worse things.”

“There’s still love for you here,” she says, quietly. “The people of the North saw the dead with their own eyes. You’re still the man who saved them from that fate. Arya held the dagger, yes, but you're the one who brought together the largest army the world has ever known. You're the one who prepared us. And they believe you did what you did to protect us." Eyes downcast, she adds in a quiet voice, "I just hope I haven’t steered them wrong.”

“You haven’t. Everything I did, I did for the North.”

Her gaze moves over his face, searching, her own face guarded. 

“I know it didn’t always look that way from the outside,” he says, “but it’s the truth.”

Still she searches, and he opens up and lets her look until she’s sated.

Finally she nods. “I was desperate. You were leaving and I was running out of time and I couldn’t think clearly. I made a mistake. I never should’ve trusted Tyrion. I should’ve made a plan and--”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. We both made mistakes. I don’t want to be bitter about them my whole life. It’s exhausting.”

“Yes.” Another smile, even briefer, fainter than before, but still there. “It is.”

He holds out his hand. “Truce?”

Even now she takes her time, regarding him as if he’ll reveal a hidden dagger with a sleight of the hand he offers. When she finally accepts, when her cool palm connects with his, a jolt hits him deep in his heart, deep in his stomach. His breath stutters. 

“Truce,” she says and then her hand is gone and he drops his own to his lap, hiding it from her as if the effect of her touch left an imprint on his skin he can’t afford her to see.

She looks entirely unaffected, draping her napkin casually over her lap and turning her gaze to the door as Tormund steps through it with his son on his hip. Something that does lure a smile from her. A real smile, warm and wide that only falters for a moment when Tormund unceremoniously dumps the boy in her lap to free his arms. A smile that returns with a rare tenderness softening her gaze when the boy grins up at her, toothless and drooling.

Jon didn’t see tenderness in her eyes when she looked upon him. He didn’t see love--he never has and he never will--but perhaps their bond was stronger than he thought. It’s not as profound and frustrating and overwhelming on her end as it is on his, granted, but she is a Tully and for Tullys family comes first. She is a Stark and for Starks the pack is everything. And even if she never would've chosen it, Jon _is_ part of her family, part of her pack. She accepts that and now he can finally accept the meaning of Tormund’s advice--a meaning he knew all along and refused taking to heart until now.

The unresolved is a shackle around his ankles, weighing down his every step, keeping him stagnant. But tomorrow, once he’s slept off tonight’s ale, once he’s asked what happened to Bran and Arya, he can return to the river, to the cabin, knowing that come spring he’ll resolve things with Sam too, and then he’ll make himself a home and a life by the Iselind. Then he’ll stay, right there, and move on.


	6. A Little Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon on tumblr asked me about Sansa’s dress style in this fic, and this was my answer: https://athimbleful.tumblr.com/post/189628301405/hello-this-might-seem-like-a-dumb-question-but

Carrot-mush, gravy droplets, and baby drool dot Sansa’s gray dress and the ends of her long unbound hair. The girl he remembers from their childhood would’ve shrieked and ran off to wash and change into something clean; this Sansa eats casually with one hand while securing Squirrel to her with the other. Granted, it took her a beat to adjust to the babe in her lap--a beat where yesterday’s panic once more flashed in her eyes--but then she relaxed and cut food into finger-sized strips for Squirrel. Now she and the wildling prince share her plate and once again it strikes Jon how similar they look. Like mother and son. Like something out of a hazy dream better left forgotten at the break of dawn.

“When are you getting one?” Tormund gestures at her and his boy with his fork. “A babe. You need an heir.”

Sansa takes her time chewing and swallowing a morsel of black bread before replying. “I don’t have a husband.”

“Then when are you getting a husband?”

“I’m not.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“Is this about that beetle? Bah, there’s got to be at least one man in Westeros who’s not like that.”

“Let me know when you find one.”

Tormund sits up straight. “You want me to find one?”

“No! No. That won’t be necessary. After Ramsay I decided. I’m never marrying again.”

“You told me you still wanted to,” Jon says before he can help himself.

Sansa’s mouth drops open. She closes it again and, lashes fluttering, looks down at her plate as she pierces a bit of chicken on her fork. “I don’t remember that.”

“After we took back Winterfell. You said you still wanted to marry and have children one day.”

“Your memory is very good.” She takes her time with this bite too, then: “Suppose some part of me still believed in songs back then. But being courted by a dashing lord, falling in love, living happily ever after… It’s not realistic. I should’ve known better than to indulge in childish dreams--especially after Ramsay. I should be grateful to the Beetle for that, really. He reminded me of how dirty the world really is.”

“The Beetle?” Jon says.

“Tybolt Bettley. House Bettley’s sigil is three blue beetles.”

Jon flexes his sword-hand beneath the table. “What did he do?”

“It’s a long story--”

“What did he do?”

Sansa lays down her fork, adjusts Squirrel in her lap, wets her mouth with water from her cup. Then, without meeting Jon’s eye for longer than the space of a breath at a time, she tells him about Bran’s tumultuous start as king. How no one trusted the strange disabled northern boy elected by friends and family. How even fewer trusted his Hand, the man widely known to be a kingslayer, kinslayer, and traitor. Then came help in the form of Lord Leo Bettley, one of House Lannister’s most loyal vassals who had connections all over Westeros--especially in regions where Bran had few allies. Bettley only wanted one thing in return: a place on Bran’s small council.

“Bran’s powers relied on his knowing what to look for, which meant they weren’t very reliable at all. But Lord Bettley had eyes and ears everywhere. And he was rich. With the gold from the Reach gone and the Lannister mines depleted, the crown needed him. Bran made him Master of Whisperers and Lord Bettley got to work. Little by little, Bran became accepted. Supported. Things became stable. Then his youngest son, Tybolt, took an interest in the Night’s Watch. I don’t know whether you… Did you read _any_ of my ravens?”

Jon shifts in his seat. “I read all of them. While I still was at Castle Black.”

Sansa’s nostrils flare as she draws in a slow breath. “Then you know,” she says in the carefully calm tone of someone upholding a truce, “why Tormund and I decided to dismantle the Night’s Watch. Why it was up to us.”

Jon nods, staring down at the table.

It was at the height of summer, an unexpected but not unwelcome heat sweeping over the North, only half a year after the destruction of King's Landing. Jon and Almer were repairing a stairwell and chatting about the wildling woman the man had taken a fancy to and now dreamed of building a cabin. Somewhere to grow old, he said. Even older, Jon had joked and they both laughed at that, for Almer was gray and wrinkled already. It was a rather good day. Jon remembers that. Everything had settled into a predictable routine. Castle Black had only a few men but more than enough work. Every day they repaired and cleaned and sorted. They took care of the library and the rookery and the little livestock still left. They were even growing food.

It wasn’t the life he dreamed of as a boy, no, but it was an easy life free from bloodshed and dangerous games where he still had a purpose in sheltering those who had nowhere to turn. It was a life he could see himself living for the rest of his days.

Then the raven came, carrying an invitation to Sansa’s nameday celebration and the promise of a gift. Not for her but for him. A gift he wasn’t ready for. A gift he did not want.

He threw the scroll in the hearth.

Tormund went, though, and returned carrying stories from the feast, a document signed by King Bran and Queen Sansa, and a desire to celebrate Jon’s pardon. They found a cask of the Watch’s terrible ale and settled down in the library. There Tormund told him the lords of Westeros saw no use for the Night’s Watch and refused to fund it. That the Gift once more belonged to the North, which made the men at Castle Black Sansa’s subjects. That he and Sansa were discussing turning it into a trading post to nurture the relationship between the North and the Free Folk and wanted Jon’s help. He told him other things too, and they drank and talked and drank and talked until they both fell asleep at the table.

The next day, while Tormund was still sleeping it off, Jon and Almer left Castle Black.

Jon closes his eyes, shoulders slumping as he listens to Sansa continuing her story. It’s all his fault, then. He _promised_ to protect her, but instead he hid in the true North and built a cabin with Alder while Sansa met that fucking Beetle who reminded her of how dirty the world was. A dashing, charming young man who, unlike the rest of Westeros, took an interest in her plans for the old castles along the Wall and even offered to fund the restoration of Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower. A dashing, charming young man who, unlike the rest of Westeros, would not be deterred by the North’s tarnished reputation Sansa was still working hard to wash clean. 

“We got along well,” Sansa says. “He was polite, kind, attentive. And he liked me.”

“And you?” Jon asks, voice hoarse. “Did you like him?”

“I wasn’t in love with him, if that’s what you’re asking. But I enjoyed his company, yes. It was very undramatic. After everything, undramatic seemed wise.”

Her eyes lose focus and she murmurs something about how not loving him almost made him _more_ appealing and Jon doesn’t understand it at all. Someone broke her heart--he’s certain of it--but it can't've been this Beetle. By the looks of it, he didn't hurt her at all. The memories have no effect on her. There are no tears in her eyes, no tremble in her voice, no pauses between sentences where she gathers herself as she tells Jon how she and everyone around her knew that when Tybolt left Winterfell to return to his father, it was to discuss a proposal.

“Servants always know,” she says. “His squire gossiped with my handmaidens. And they told me. By design, of course. Tybolt wanted me to know. He wanted me to get excited, to long for it. He thought I was a great deal more fond of him than I was. And a great deal more naive. Apparently, I had met his mother at court. I did not remember her, but she remembered me. Cersei’s little dove. They must’ve thought I was still like that.”

She smiles to herself and it only confuses Jon further. Looking to Tormund helps little; the man knows this story and is busy eating his food and pulling funny faces to amuse his son.

“Tybolt had been gone for about a week when a raven came from King’s Landing. Not about him. About Tyrion." Sansa holds Jon's gaze for a beat before looking away. "After what happened, they’d struggled to repopulate King’s Landing and there was only one establishment in the whole city--you don’t want to know how much of the crown’s gold Bronn wasted to get _that_ running. But I suppose Bronn and Tyrion grew tired of the _selection_ after a while. One night they rode to Tumbleton for fresh…” She glances down at Squirrel, who’s mashing carrots without a care in the world. “Well, they were drinking and playing cards with some local soldiers at a brothel. Then one of them accused Tyrion of cheating and pulled a dagger. Bronn had a woman on his lap. 'One hand full of tits, the other full of cards,' is how he put it, I believe. He dropped it all, pulled his dagger too, but he was too late. The damage was already done. The maester was called and he did what he could. For three days Tyrion clung to life, but then he passed away. I assume you didn't know he was gone?"

“No, I didn't." Jon leans back in his seat. “I thought he’d outlive us all. He was so…”

“Willing to do anything to survive? No matter whom he’d end up hurting? Yes.” She sighs deeply, shaking her head. “He told me. He told me what he was and I didn’t listen. I can’t believe I trusted him. I thought he was a good man, because he was kind to me once. Because he didn’t treat me as poorly as he could have. Because, compared to every other horrible man I’d come across, he was nice. But he wasn’t. He betrayed us. Over and over."

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t be bitter about past mistakes,” Jon says with a crooked smile. But his attempt at lightening the mood as no effect.

Sansa has drifted off in thoughts, her unfocused eyes staring into nothing, and when she speaks again, it’s more to herself than to him. “He loved her. I thought he feared her, but he loved her. And love makes us stupid. Stupid and loyal for far longer than we should be.”

And there it is again: bitter words and a tone that sings of regret, of heartache, of a self-loathing Jon is far too familiar with to miss.

But she said she didn't love Tybolt Bettley.

(King’s Landing taught her how to be a good liar, though, didn’t it?)

"And the Beetle?" Jon says. "Did he return? Did he propose?”

"Hm? Oh. Yes. His father handled Tyrion’s duties while Tyrion lay on his deathbed. And once Tyrion had passed, Lord Bettley remained as Hand. Tybolt returned to Winterfell and became more forthright about his desires. He proposed. Out of love, he said, but he also pointed out how good a match it was. He wasn’t wrong. Everyone wanted me to say yes. The North’s reputation was still under repair. Marrying a Bettley would be good for us--especially now that his father was Bran’s Hand. And Tybolt was seemingly perfect in every way. The only person who objected was Drustan, but that wasn’t--”

Sansa sucks in a breath and presses her lips together, a lovely shade of pink coloring her cheeks. 

Tormund leans in over the table, shaking his index finger at her. “Aah! That’s where I know him from. I thought he looked familiar. He’s the prince.”

Sansa sips her water. “He was a prince, yes.”

“No, he was _the_ prince. The pretty one, at your nameday celebration.”

“Drustan has attended at least three of my nameday celebrations.”

“The first one. When he followed you around and made you giggle and blush. You danced more with him than anyone else.”

Jon swallows, eyes locked on Sansa and her nonchalantly curved eyebrow and tilted chin and still-pink cheeks. _This_ is it. It was never the Beetle; it was the pretty prince. He’s the one who stole her heart and threw it away--and Jon shouldn’t look as interested, as upset, as heartbroken as he feels. He forces himself to eat and drink of things that taste and feel like paper, forces himself to swallow morsels that grow in his mouth, while Sansa and Tormund talk about things in a way that makes it abundantly clear that they have five years’ of shared experiences Jon rejected entirely because he’s a bleeding idiot.

“Did you two ever…” Tormund says and Jon nearly chokes on the implication.

“Become friends?” Sansa smiles sweetly. “Yes. We’re dear friends.”

“No-no-no. Don’t play your little games with me, southerner.” Tormund laughs, sitting comfortable and grand like a king in his seat. “You liked him, and he liked you. I could tell. Everyone in the Great Hall could tell. You liked him _a lot._ And now you’re telling me he didn’t want you to marry the Beetle? Well…” Tormund spreads his arms out wide enough that Jon has to duck lest he gets greasy fingers in his face. “That smells like jealousy to me.”

“All right. We grew fond of each other,” Sansa says and Jon chews, swallows, chews, swallows. “We did. And he proposed. But he was the Prince of Dorne; I was the Queen in the North. He said we’d figure it out, that love conquers all, and that’s very romantic and once upon a time it would’ve worked, but I’m not that naive girl anymore. I know now that sometimes love isn’t enough." Eyes averted, she adds: "I’m not sure it ever is.”

“You turned him down.”

“I did. I knew that by saying yes, I’d risk one day losing our independence. Turns out I was right.”

Tormund bangs his tankard on the table. “But you found love!”

“I’ve never regretted choosing the North over love. Never. Love is for stories, not real life.”

“Bah. What horseshit is that. Love is why we fight and why we fuck. It’s why we live! What is life without love?”

“Safe.” 

Jon looks up at her then, but her eyes are on Tormund and her lips are smiling and she means it. She means every word of it. The little girl who dreamed of songs and romance has grown up to be a woman who no longer believes in love--who no longer _wants_ love--and it’s one of the most heart-breaking things Jon's ever heard.

“All right. Fuck love,” Tormund says. “What about children? You don’t need love or a husband to have children. All you need is some good, strong seed. You should take a lover. Get yourself an heir. Then a few more. Squirrel will want a bride one day.”

“So people keep telling me. But you know what Ramsay did. I can’t just…” Sansa sighs. “It’s not that easy.”

“There has to be pretty lords in Westeros who’ll treat you gently.”

“Yes, lots of pretty lords who don’t have to marry me to betray me. The moment I have his child, he’ll have a way of controlling me. I’m not willing to take that risk.”

Tormund grunts, nodding, and then he keeps giving Sansa suggestions. Suggestions she skillfully parries, no matter whether Tormund suggests lowborn men or wildling men or Essosi men or even, jokingly, that she beheads her lovers once she’s done with them. Then he has the gall to suggest _himself_ , which Sansa easily laughs off without insulting him for how could her children marry Tormund’s children if they were his? A fair point, Tormund admits. And Jon is so shocked by their candor, by the ease with which they discuss something so outlandish as Sansa taking a _lover_ of all things, that it dawns on him a little too late where Tormund is steering the conversation.

That sneaky bloody bear-fucking wildling is king for a few years and now he thinks he can play at politics and match-making? He must’ve planned this all along. He must’ve come to Jon’s camp with this in mind, kept dumping his son in Jon’s and Sansa’s arms with this in mind, kept finding ways to get Sansa to talk about babes with this in mind--and now, as if he can smell Jon’s urge to flee, his heavy arm his back around Jon’s shoulders, anchoring him to the chair.

Jon can’t look at Sansa when she hears it. He can’t do anything but stare in horror at the gnawed-clean chicken thigh on his plate as Tormund delivers his final suggestion: someone kind and gentle who’d never hurt Sansa, who’d protect her and the babe, who’d be a good father, who’ll take that fucking chicken thigh and ram it down Tormund’s throat unless he shuts up already.

The suggestion hangs in a heavy silence made even more uncomfortable by Squirrel’s surprised coo when he grabs a buttered parsnip and brings it to his mouth only for it to slip out of his fingers and fall to the floor. No one moves. Squirrel chirps. Then he grabs something else and, when he manages to get it into his mouth, beams at his father who beams back.

"What do you say, my boy? Shouldn't Jon and Sansa have a little girl you could grow up to marry?"

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” Sansa says in an insultingly wry tone. “Jon has already found himself a maid. I caught her sneaking out of his chambers half-dressed last night.”

“What?” Still holding Jon tight, Tormund leans back to look at him. “She healed you?”

“If you say another word,” Jon says through gritted teeth, “I _will_ kill you.”

Tormund booms out a laugh and ruffles Jon’s hair. “Nah, he didn’t fuck a maid. You see, he has a little problem--”

“Would you shut up!”

Tormund looks to Sansa and whispers. Loudly. “He can’t get his dick hard.”

Jon clenches his teeth so hard he half expects them to shatter. “I do _not_ have a problem.”

“So you fucked the maid?”

“I didn’t touch her! _She_ came into my chambers, _she_ started undressing, and I showed her the door, and your child, who’s not even seven months old, is sitting right there and you’re talking about _this_?”

He gestures at the babe, who is rude enough to look positively delighted at being seated in the queen’s lap and playing with food while listening to the adults talk about adult things. 

“Oh, he’s too little to understand. Look!” Tormund puts his hands on the table and leans in close to his little boy. “Dick!”

Squirrel laughs, chubby hands reaching out for Tormund’s beard to give it a tug.

“Dickdickdickdick,” Tormund says while Squirrel giggles and giggles. “That’s my boy. He’s no ordinary babe.” He sits back down and nudges Jon in the side. “You could have one of those--a whole brood of them--kissed by fire and everything, if you give your cousin what she wants.”

_Just laugh. Laugh it off. Tormund’s an idiot! Everyone knows that. Just laugh for fuck’s sake._

But no matter how much his inner voice scolds him, Jon forgets both how to flee and fight and ends up clutching the armrests, frozen stiff. Frozen and yet boiling in his wildling clothes. Why in the seven bleeding hells has someone lit the hearth? It’s not _that_ cold outside. Weak fucking southerners. They don’t know real cold. They don’t know what it’s like to sleep in the shadow of the Iron Mountains in the dead of winter. The cold would kill them like the heat is killing him now, his temperature rising with each word spilling from Tormund’s lips about how Jon wants a family but is unable to perform with the spearwives because all he wants is a lady. A pretty lady with soft hands who wears lovely dresses and combs her--

“I was _drunk_!” Panting, he glares at Tormund. “I didn’t mean _any_ of it.”

“Ah, but truths spill from drunken lips!”

“It was when I was a _boy_. It’s not what I want now. I haven't wanted it in a long time.”

Tormund grins. “That’s not what you told me. You said--”

Before another disastrous truth is revealed, the door opens and in walks a savior in a tattered green doublet and an almost entirely silver beard covering his sun-weathered face.

“Davos!”

Jon can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed over sounding like a boy welcoming his father home from the war, he can't find it in himself to fret over whether or not Davos loathes him. He’s on his feet in an instant, throwing his arms around his old friend and hugging him close. Davos pulls back almost instantly, chiding Jon for hiding for so long and teasing him about his wildling hair and wildling beard, but his calloused hands cup Jon’s cheeks and his eyes shine with tears of joy and his voice is filled with a warmth that spreads in Jon’s hollow chest and tempers the scorching heat of humiliation.

“I thought you were dead,” Davos says, blinking away the mistiness in his eyes. “Good to see I was wrong. You’re not doing that again are you? Disappearing for five years cos then I might just have to go north and find you and that could kill a man my age. I trust that’s not something you want on your conscience.”

“No.” Jon laughs. “Can’t say it is.”

“Good.” He pats Jon affectionately on the shoulder before letting him go and turning to Tormund. “Dim told me about Gullis. I was sorry to hear it. She was a damn fine woman.”

Then he embraces Tormund too, and as they talk about Gullis, Jon chances a glance at Sansa.

On her feet, now, she’s holding the baby close and swaying lightly on the spot with the sweetest smile gracing her lips and the gentlest light shining in her eyes and a longing burning in her heart she wouldn't show had she known she was being watched. She even buries her nose in Squirrel’s hair when the boy rubs his food-stained little face against her. 

“Are you tired, sweet boy?” she murmurs. "Hm?"

Squirrel replies by opening his mouth wide and planting it on her breast. Sansa gasps, drawing the attention of Tormund who throws his head back with a guffaw when he sees his boy’s second attempt at latching on.

“You won’t find any milk there, boy. At least not yet.” He elbows Jon in the side and Jon’s never been closer to punching the man. “Better get him to his milk-mother. Time for some proper food, eh?” He lifts Squirrel from Sansa’s arms. “He needs a nap before his big moment. Come, Davos. We’ll leave these two idiots to sort things out.”

Davos throws them a bemused look, but follows Tormund through the door and then Jon and Sansa are alone--completely alone--and he has to force himself to stay right where he is instead of mumbling out an excuse and following his friends to safer grounds while she's all regal and collected with her hands clasped behind her back. Disheveled and dirty by Squirrel’s table manners, aye, but completely untouched by Tormund’s lack of tact when Jon was blushing so hard his skin nearly melted off his flesh.

“Don’t listen to Tormund,” he says. “He’s an idiot.”

“I’ve known him for a while now. I’m aware.” Her voice is soft. Pitying. Condescending. “Jon, if it’s a lady you want, I’m sure you’ll find one--”

“Don’t you start too.” He gestures vaguely at the door. “Shadow needs to get out of the stall or she’ll go mad. I’ll be back later.”

He walks calmly out the door, calmly down the hallway, calmly down the stairs, calmly across the courtyard. He greets the people he passes, even exchanges a word with Oskar and manages to smile and be nice and all of it. But once Jon is in the saddle, he clicks his tongue and urges Shadow to run like Tormund’s stupid fucking mouth until Winterfell is a mere speck against the horizon.

* * *

* * *

Sansa holds her breath, holds her composure, and waits, waits, waits. The door remains closed. Everything is quiet. No one is coming back. She’s alone.

The breath rushes out of her, a loud gust that takes her last strength with it, and she collapses in the chair. Half an eternity passes before her breathing calms, before her racing heart quiets enough to let sound back in. Chatter reaches her from the courtyard. Guests arriving, greeted by the steward and settling into the guesthouse or the guest chambers in the Keep.

With trembling hands, she takes the pitcher of ale and fills a cup even though she hates the drink. It’s vile. It turns her stomach. She drinks it all down.

She needs a bath. Squirrel has her looking a mess. She’ll have to wash her hair. She needs to go. Get ready. Don a pretty dress. Wear a pretty smile. Attend a feast where wine and ale and sour goat’s milk will flow and Jon will look like a wildling and Tormund will be Tormund.

She refills the cup. Drinks it a small mouthful at a time. 

Oh, this evening won’t end well. It won't end well at all.


	7. The Plotting of Beetles

The setting sun throws a glittering net across the mere. With his hand tangled in Shadow’s mane, Jon watches a pair of swans glide across, their shapes like shadows in the backlight. Far behind them a pair of cranes dip their beaks into the water to feed or drink. In the distance fox pups skitter after their mother, climbing up the craggy rocks leading toward the mountains. Everywhere he looks, it’s either breeding season or the young have already arrived, as if Tormund has managed to strong-arm nature itself into helping him fill Jon’s head with ideas best forgotten.

The sound of hooves against soft grass grows louder and louder. Longclaw still lies on Jon Snow’s bed, but Jon the Crow’s dagger is attached to his hip. He wraps his fingers around the hilt, ready to show that he’s armed.

“Told you I’d come after you if you tried running away.”

Jon relaxes his hand. “I’m not running away. Shadow needed to stretch her legs.”

Davos hums, dismounts his horse, and ties her to a young birch before choosing a moss-draped rock for his seat.

“I didn’t know you were this good at tracking.”

“At my ripe old age, you’ve usually picked up a skill or two. Also, there's nothing around for miles. I could see you from the Kingsroad.”

Jon smiles. “Father use-- Ned used to fish here when I was a boy.” He sits up properly, wrapping an arm around his pulled up knees. “He taught me and Robb. Right here.”

“A good thing to learn.”

“Aye. Would’ve starved to death without it.”

“What’ve you been up to? Five years--it’s a long time. Wife? Children?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Davos nods, looking out over the mere. “I always pictured you with a few little ones. But there’s still time. You’re young.”

“Tormund got to you?”

Davos knits his brow. “No, I said hi to the prince and then I came running after you. Is he nagging at you?”

“Yeah.” Jon shakes his head. “I shouldn’t. What I am… It should end with me.”

“A bit too late for that, isn’t it?” Davos says and Jon turns more fully toward him. “If I remember Stannis’ family history correctly--and I do--he had Targaryen blood. Which means Robert Baratheon did too. And as he was the father of Gendry, who now is the proud father of two little boys, well…” Davos fires off a grin. “Too late.”

“There’s too much of it in me. And look at what I did. What I helped in doing.”

“You fell in love. It blinded you and you didn’t see her for what she was until it was too late. It’s happened to many men before you and it’s going to happen to many men after you, no matter what blood runs in their veins.”

“You’re wrong,” Jon murmurs. “I always knew what she was, right from the start, and she terrified me. What she could do, it terrified me. So I did what I had to do to keep everyone I loved safe--and a million people paid for it with their lives. Because I was a coward. Does that sound like a good father to you?”

“Well,” Davos says, “you protected the people you love, so…” He fires off another grin that quickly softens into the gentle mien of a father. “I can’t absolve you of that sin, Jon. But I do know you can’t punish yourself forever. It won’t help and it won’t heal anything.”

“So I should just, what, settle down? Have a wife and kids and pretend like nothing happened?”

“I believe we’ve had this conversation before. Sometimes we fail. Doesn’t mean we should stop trying--and there’s nothing wrong with living too while you try.” Davos places his elbows on his thighs and leans forward, looking into Jon’s eyes. “There were a lot of us who could’ve done more. Especially me. I was there with you, every step of the way, and I did nothing to stop her either. But now I do what I can to make up for it. First I was Master of Ships. Then, after they executed Bettley, I was Hand for a while. Now I’m Master of Ships again. And I do what I can to help the smallfolk, not just the rich folk and--”

“They executed Bettley? Lord Bettley. Bran’s Hand.”

“Aye. And his son. You’ve not heard the story?”

“Sansa told me half of it. Then Tormund interrupted. What happened?”

“You should ask your sister.”

“Cousin.”

Davos observes him quietly for a beat, his gray eyes far too sharp for a man his age; Jon hangs his head, brushing strands of grass off his breeches.

“Can’t be easy,” Jon says to his knees, “working in King’s Landing. After what happened.”

“No, it wasn’t. I was born and raised in Flea Bottom. Streets where I grew up, the people I knew--my whole childhood turned to ashes. First few months I had nightmares almost every night. But I focused on the work. On rebuilding and making things better. And now that Drustan is king, I’m at Sunspear--”

Jon’s head snaps up at that, but he keeps his questions to himself.

“--so it’s rare now. That I get them.” Davos tilts his head to the side. “How are you sleeping?”

“Me?” Jon forces a smile. “I sleep like a babe.”

“Hm. That’s good.” Davos gets to his feet and proffers his hand. “Speaking of babes: we should go back. Time to celebrate the prince.”

* * *

* * *

  
  


Sipping watered wine, Sansa stands by the window while Kari twists her hair into a thick braid she adorns with wood anemones. He’s not back yet. Probably jumped up on that horse of his and galloped off into the wilderness never to be seen again. Not by Stark eyes, at least. Not by Tully eyes.

She’s not dreamed it in years, but once upon a time… Oh, they were frequent then those daydreams--and all too easy to reimagine. She had names picked out and everything, like the pathetic little girl she was. But Jon doesn’t want it with her--and she doesn’t want it with him. Not anymore. She’s not _that_ desperate. 

It’s good that he left. What his mere presence brings out in her is not befitting a queen. It’s not befitting her.

Kari jumps down from the stepping stool and looks up at Sansa. “There we go, Your Grace. You look beautiful.”

Sansa glances at her reflection. A midnight blue Dornish dress of swaths and swaths of diaphanous fabric falling from a bodice enriched with embroidery of winter roses the color of frost (not by her own hand for once). A gift from Drustan, bought by him, worn for him, removed by him. She still remembers the way his lips felt against her skin when he kissed every bit of her he uncovered. Smiling at the memory, she strokes her hands down her waist. That was a good night. He taught her what it felt like to be loved--truly loved.

Still, she can’t help but cast one last glance out the window before she leaves and there he is, the wildling with Jon’s eyes and Jon’s voice, dismounting with Davos.

Once the sight would’ve sent butterflies whirling in her stomach and a painful yearning clenching her heart. Now bitterness lies heavy on her sharpened tongue, resentment boils her blood, and a powerful need simmers in her body. A need to yell and accuse and grab and push against a wall and tear off his clothes and--

She sucks in a shuddering breath and pours herself another glass of wine. No water this time.

It’s been too long, that’s all this is. A frustration. And he looks wild and dark and different, like a wildling man sneaking into Winterfell to pluck a flower from the glass gardens. Like something out of a song she loved as a young girl and didn’t see for what it was: a horrible truth disguised as romance. Just because she agreed to a truce doesn’t mean she needs to lead him into the garden, pluck that flower for him, and beg him to accept the gift from her own hand.

She’ll be nice. Polite. Pleasant. That’s more than enough.

Finishing her wine, she closes her eyes and once more conjures the memory of Drustan's lips, clings to that feeling, coats herself with it (shields herself with it). Then she leaves.

* * *

* * *

“Just so we’re clear,” Jon says, boring his eyes into Tormund. “I’m here for your son and for Davos. I’m really fucking angry with you.”

“You’re using those pretty lips of yours.” Tormund slaps him on the back. “I like it.”

Then he breaks out in a wide grin and throws himself into the feast where he shows off his son and receives praise and gifts galore. It’s an odd thing, seeing the wildling king celebrated by a North that loathed him and his kind only a handful years ago. But then Jon barely recognizes half of the lords and ladies gathered. So many died in the wars. Daughter have become the heads of their Houses. New Houses have formed. But Lord Glover is there and Lord Manderly, neither recognizing him to his relief, and Jon sinks back into the shadows as the princeling is celebrated, gifts are bestowed, and the babe finally is carried away by his milk-mother to sleep.

“I think I might need that keep after all,” Tormund says, appraising the swords and clothes and books and furniture and other gifts now being moved out of the Great Hall to be stored in the guesthouse until he leaves. “Can’t carry this around.”

“You should ask for one of the abandoned castles on the Wall,” Jon says. “You could restore it.”

“Mm. Here’s what we’ll do: we’ll leave all this here for now, we’ll visit Sam, and then we’ll choose a castle, and start rebuilding. You’re Jon the Builder now, what with all your cabins. I need you with me.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, rubbing his jaw. “If Sam lets me in.”

“Sam loves you,” Davos says. “You’ve hurt a lot of feelings, there’s no point in lying about that, but we all still love you.”

 _Not everyone_ , Jon thinks, his eyes drifting to Sansa. (But then she never did, did she?)

While she greeted him after he showed up and they sat at the same table while supping, she shows little interest in spending time with him. And when they're apart, her eyes never seek him out the way his seek her. He can’t help it. Whenever there’s a flash of copper in his peripheral, Jon turns his head and looks and looks as she glides through the crowd, exchanging pleasantries and smiles with Tormund’s guests.

As a girl, she always had Jeyne or Beth by her side. But this Sansa keeps only her wine cup as company. As company and as a mask and a shield she raises to her lips to give her a chance to think of a reply or a question, to hide a smile or a tension in her face. It looks effortless.

It looks lonely.

When Jon shakes off his envy, he sees it even when she spends time with Tormund or Davos. As they talk about things new to Jon, shared memories that show a much deeper friendship between them he would ever have guessed possible, she still uses her little tricks to keep her distance. They’re friends, aye, and they know things about her, but do they really know _her_?

Does anyone?

Growing up, Jon and Sansa’s paths rarely crossed and neither made an effort to change it. He remembers only a handful summer afternoons when they played, all of them. When Sansa was a maiden and Robb or Theon a prince. For some reason, even though Jon was allowed to be a hero or a monster when they played on their own or with Arya, he never was when Sansa joined them. An unspoken rule. Instead he was the hero’s squire too lowly to speak to the princess. One time, though, he was allowed to be the monster for Theon had the summer flu. He and Sansa sat alone in the broken tower, waiting for Robb and his wooden sword to show. Sitting primly on a fallen beam with her skirts draped prettily around her legs and her hair draped prettily over one shoulder, she was the perfect lady who would not break character as she spoke to the beastly dragon who held her captive.

Jon sweated so badly he had to wipe his hands on his breeches and often opted to give his replies in the form of a growl or snarl. Not that she seemed to mind. After a while she even sang to soothe the angry dragon, and Jon rolled up on the dirty stone floor and pretended to doze off. After Robb rescued her, before she fluttered away to one of her harp lessons or needlepoint sessions or whatever it was, she whispered a thank you to Jon and told him Theon and Robb never play along as well as he did, and Jon had to duck his head to hide a blush.

Growing up, Jon and Sansa never liked each other (at least she never liked him). But sometimes he thinks, had they _known_ each other, they would’ve. If only one of them had taken the first step and broken the silence.

It’s too late now, though. What needs to heal between them requires much more time and care than either of them is willing to give, but it’s not too late to part on good terms. To leave her with a better impression of him than he did last time. Then maybe he should join Tormund and Davos to visit Sam. It doesn’t seem so daunting anymore.

Talking to Sansa, though… She was nicer today. She was. He can do it. One more tankard of ale and then he’ll do it.

* * *

Nursing that ale, he keeps an eye on her until she’s found herself an empty table in the corner of the room where she sits down with her cup. Which, he realizes after he’s very determinedly set course toward her, might be a bad idea. No one else is approaching, as if they all understand what he doesn’t: after hours of mingling, the Queen needs a moment alone. But she’s already noticed him and their eyes have met and if he turns around now he’ll look even dumber than he feels, so he keeps on walking.

“So…” he says with a smile he hopes is disarming. “Can you stomach being seen with me or do you think it’ll give Tormund ideas?”

Her eyes widen before she recovers with a quick smile and gestures at him to sit. He slides onto the bench opposite her, an ale-stained table and too much unspoken between them. She sips her wine, her eyes firelit and enigmatic over the metal rim, her hair full of flowers. Wood anemones. They have no scent and still he imagines he can smell them, a clean, sweet smell that pulls him closer and has him leaning his forearms on the table. 

She’s ridiculously beautiful, all for Tormund and his guests.

“Do you remember when we were little?” he says. “When we played in the broken tower?”

“Don’t do that,” she says.

“Do what?”

“Search your memory for that one thing we have to pretend we were something to one another when we were children to break the ice. It just makes it thicker.”

“Right,” he says and pushes himself to stand.

“Jon," she says, and there's a lifetime of weariness in that one word, "I didn’t mean that you should leave. Just… I’m tired of pretending. That we are something we’re not. Can’t we just be what we are now?”

Jon sinks back down. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Nor do I,” she murmurs. “But you sat down for a reason, didn’t you? And I don’t think it was to talk about summer games. Just say what you came to say.”

“All right.” He tosses his hair over his shoulder and takes a swig of ale. “You never finished your story, about the Beetle. I assume there was some sort of plot?”

She looks almost amused by that. “Yes. Where was I?”

“Your prince was jealous.”

A small twitch between her brows, a question in her eyes that clears as quickly as it appeared. His cheeks are kind enough to remain cool. And so, beneath the din of countless guests laughing and talking and with ale buzzing in his veins and wine wetting her lips, Sansa tells him about the Beetle. 

He was a good match. Too good. As everything lined up so perfectly, her suspicions grew and she asked Bran to look at the conversation between the Bettleys regarding the proposal. What Bran saw prompted him to watch more and more and more. There _was_ a plot. One they had started planning before they first came to King’s Landing to offer their help.

The Bettleys were loyal to House Lannister, yes, but when the Red Keep crumbled atop the twins, House Lannister no longer existed to them. No one knew the truth about Joffrey’s murder, so as far as they knew, Tyrion had killed his nephew, his father, and now his bringing the conqueror to Westeros had killed his siblings too. He was a traitor, a kinslayer, a monster, unworthy of the Lannister name and the loyalty it should inspire.

Bronn, a friend of Tyrion’s who had been promised a castle for years, had yet to receive this castle. The remaining Tyrell relatives and the powerful Houses of the Reach did not take kindly to the idea of a sellsword becoming Lord of Highgarden. And after Gendry had been given Storm’s End (which had been so unpopular Tyrion had to make a match between Gendry and one of his cousins to calm the Stormlands) and Bran’s position was precarious at best, Tyrion gave Highgarden to a Tyrell cousin.

Bronn ran out of patience, had grown tired of his position, felt used and bored, and when the Bettley’s showered him with gold and prospects… His hands might’ve been full of tits and cards, but his heart was full of deceit and Tyrion died by his design and a catspaw paid for by his gold.

That was their first step: getting rid of Tyrion, to deeper infiltrate Bran’s council, to appease the lords under their thumb and seemingly temper the uproar brewing in Westeros.

“Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I had taken mercy on Tyrion,” Sansa says. “If I had done for him what I did for you. But I had no love for him. He was not a Stark…” She takes a mouthful of wine, licks her lips. “With Tyrion gone and Lord Bettley as Bran’s Hand, Tybolt now proposed to me. The plan, Bran discovered, was to wait until I had a son. Then I would have an _accident_ , and so would Bran, and then Leo Bettley would unite the North and the South by putting mine and Tybolt’s son on the throne and rule it all through him.”

Jon’s sword hand clenches into a tight fist. He releases it with a shaky exhale. “They wanted to kill you,” he grinds out. “They wanted to breed with you and _kill_ you?”

“You’re surprised? That’s what men have wanted to do to me ever since I flowered.”

“I should’ve been here. I would’ve protected you.”

Sansa lets out a laugh. “I protected myself. Nothing happened. Bronn and the Bettleys were arrested and executed. And I was reminded of how men can’t be trusted. It’s a lesson forced on me again and again, but I have learned it now. I don’t need any more reminders.”

Jon nods, shoulders slumping. “No, you don’t.”

“I’ll find an heir another way.” She drinks more wine, the red staining her lips a deep, rich color he can taste on his tongue. He blinks and looks away. “So what’s your excuse, Jon? And don’t give me that ‘I want a lady’ nonsense. Tormund might buy it, but I don’t.”

Jon wraps his hands around his tankard, fingers tapping against the smooth wood. “I have bad blood. What if my-- What if they become like her? Or her father.”

“She really was awful.”

“A monster.”

“But you’re not.”

Jon looks up at her with a crooked smile. “No? You act like I’m awful.”

“You’re _occasionally_ awful,” Sansa says with a teasing smile that sweeps warmth through his chest, and his own smile grows. “But you’d be a good father. I do believe that. And you’re not a Targaryen. I don't care who sired you. You’re not like them.”

“Am I a Stark then?”

“Do you even want to be?”

“It’s all I ever wanted.”

“You have a strange way of showing it.”

“Yeah,” he says, still smiling, and takes another swig. 

“You and Arya and Bran. You all chose not to be. I never thought I would be the last of the Starks but…”

“Where _is_ Arya?”

“I don’t know. No one does. She returned from her travels about a year after she left. In a skiff, with two of her men, badly injured. I left for King's Landing as soon as I heard. She was gone before I arrived.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t tell Bran much and told him he couldn’t look. All I know is that she did find what’s west of Westeros. But they did not want to be found. She barely made it off the island alive. And something else must’ve happened on the way back. Pirates. I don’t know.”

“Her injuries?”

“Her right arm was so badly hurt…” Sansa’s eyes fall to his hand as if she wants to take it, to squeeze it, to offer some comfort. (She doesn't.) “She lost it. The maester had to amputate.”

Jon swallows, his mind out on the Kingsroad already. “I should find her.”

“You can try, but... I tried the first few years. Every time one of my men was close, she disappeared again. Sometimes I get a raven from someone who’s seen her. In the Stormlands or the Reach or Dorne. The Iron Islands once. Never the North. She doesn’t want to be found.”

He nods slowly. “She needs time.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. She’s Arya. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”

“Maybe we should send Tormund after her. He’ll drag her back.”

Jon grins into his tankard. “Aye, that’s an idea.”

“He’s watching us,” she murmurs. “Don’t look. But he looks very pleased.”

“Of course he does.” Jon turns his tankard in his hands. “Must admit I’m a bit surprised. At how close the two of you are. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Yes, a man who’s open and loyal and honest and shows his emotions freely. Why would I want someone like that in my life?”

Her eyes were on Tormund when she said it, but now they return to Jon and something honey-thick and sun-hot surges deep in his belly.

“Aye,” he says, shifting in his seat, “what you see is what you get. No hidden plots.”

“No? Have you already forgotten why he dragged you here? Maybe you should tell him the real reason why you don’t want children. Or, I suppose…” A wicked smile spreads on her face and this time his cheeks are cruel and turn as red as her lips. “I could find you a lady.”

Jon groans into his ale. "I'm a wildling now. What lady would want me."

“The North has changed. Many ladies have invited wildlings into their beds. At least one heir is half wildling.”

“A bastard? Her _heir_?”

“I legitimized him. I’ve done it quite a bit. Do you remember Meera? The girl who helped Bran. She had a boy, Wylis, a few months ago. She’s unwed. I signed the documents. The boy is her heir.”

Jon leans back, appraising her. “And you’ll keep doing this?”

“Of course. I know what it’s like to be forced to wed. If the ladies of the North want to take lovers, I’ll legitimize their children. Do you disapprove?”

“No,” he says with warmth in his voice, in his eyes. “You’re doing good things.”

“So…”

Sansa leans in closer with the wine cup dangling from her fingers and that wicked smile back on her lips. They’re _so_ red. As if someone kissed them swollen and wet.

“...if you want that lady after all, I know there are plenty in here tonight who’d invite you into their bed.”

_Not the lady I want._

Jon clears his throat, drinks the last of his ale. “I want to know what happened to Bran,” he says, putting down his empty tankard. “How did he die?”

Sansa leans back with a sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t even know whether he’s dead. Well, according to Meera, he died years ago in a cave beyond the Wall. The boy who came back while you were on Dragonstone was never Bran at all.”

“And you believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe. All I know is that he’s gone. And he is gone because Drogon came back.”

Heat flows through Jon’s body, like fire burning in his gut and stinging his skin until he’s boiling. His mouth tastes like ashes. He waves at a serving maid, watches the ale flow from her pitcher into his tankard, and douses the flames roaring in his body, washes away the taste of death coating his tongue with the rich, cool taste of Winterfell.

Putting down the half-full tankard, Jon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and lets out a satisfied breath. Sansa’s eyes flit between his, a concerned wrinkle between her brows. He makes himself smile.

“That’s good ale. You know how rare it is for me to get some proper ale?”

“No,” she says, quietly. “You’ve not told me anything about your life.”

“There’s nothing to tell. Honestly.”

She holds his gaze for a beat, unconvinced. But then she lets it go with a shake her head, finishes her own drink, waves at a serving maid for more, and begins to talk.


	8. Silly Little Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this one just poured out of me, huh! Thank goodness for dialogue heavy chapters. Anyway... Happy holidays, everyone!
> 
> Oh, and idk whether this needs a trigger warning, but just in case: Jon is even more teased over his "little problem" which isn't very nice, but it happens so if you're sensitive to that... Also mentions of bestiality inspired by Ygritte's talk about goats.

Years passed before people returned to King’s Landing. Drogon flew away unscathed and no one ever actually saw Daenerys' body and that was enough to keep most from passing the city gates if they could help it. But as well-paid workers restored buildings and the people were promised homes and places to set up shop without having to part from their coin, they started trickling into the city after all, settling in, and opening up shops, and a tavern, an alehouse, an inn, another brothel… After the Bettleys’ execution, Westeros had grown even wearier for a time, but now King Bran and his council felt stability waiting for them on the horizon.

Then Drogon returned, unleashing fire on the settlements surrounding King’s Landing before setting his eyes on the capital. Dragons are intelligent creatures; it took Bran time and effort to get control over the beast. Ashes and crumbled buildings once more littered the streets of King's Landing before he finally managed to make it land, and Brienne and Podrick slayed the beast with their two halves of Ice. They were hailed heroes, dragonslayers, drank and ate for free in any establishment, and Podrick even bedded whores without paying. 

For three glorious days, the people loved King Bran. Then whispers started stirring, speculation about the king’s powers and why he hadn’t used them before. Unless he had. Did he warg into Drogon the first time to burn down King’s Landing, pin it on Daenerys, and take the throne for himself, people wondered. No, the last Targaryen was hated enough that people were unwilling to absolve her from the blame. But what if Bran had _let_ her when he could've stopped her, they asked themselves instead. What if he let her destroy the capital so he could swoop in afterwards and become their king? Yes, that must be it. Discontent spread along with the rumor. An angry mob formed, grew, turned into a riot. The Red Keep was stormed and in the chaos, Bran disappeared.

“I’ve heard so many versions of what happened,” Sansa says, thumb stroking the bowl of the wine cup. “That he was torn apart until nothing remained. That he was bound to his chair, weighed down, and pushed into the ocean. Or simply stabbed in the throne room. But no body was ever found, and a few of his guards disappeared without a trace too. They'd been especially close to him and had come to almost worship him and his powers. There were people like that too. Even among the smallfolk. They might've carried him away to safety.”

While she spoke, she didn’t look much at Jon, but now she turns her gaze to him. He’s staring blankly ahead, breathing as if he’d been the one talking until he ran out of air. A sheen glitters on his pallid face. His hand closes around the tankard and he drinks deep of its contents.

“What do you believe?” he asks, putting the tankard back down but keeping his hand wrapped around it.

“Depends on the day. Meera thinks he’s sitting under some weirwood tree somewhere, deep underground. Perhaps beyond the Wall. That the guards took him there and that they protect him now. Some days I think she’s right. Other days…” Sansa smiles sadly. “Either way he’s gone. And I have mourned him. I had to.”

Jon nods. “How many? People. How many died?”

“Thousands. King’s Landing has been empty since and there are no plans on changing that. Sunspear’s the capital now and only Davos remains on the new king’s council.”

“He didn’t want Brienne? The new king. I’m surprised she didn’t return to your side.”

“I offered, but she said she’d failed too many times. Renly, Mother. She failed to bring Arya back, failed to protect me from Littlefinger and Ramsay. She couldn’t forgive herself for failing Bran too. It’s why she returned to Tarth. But I hear she picked a sword back up after her wedding. Once she learned she was pregnant. She wants to teach her son or daughter how to fight.”

Jon smiles crookedly. “I still can’t believe she’s pregnant.”

“I _know_.”

Sansa ducks her head, laughing quietly, and she notices Jon’s shoulders jumping as if he’s laughing too and there’s nothing funny about it, not really, but it feels good to laugh. To dispel the veil of wistfulness that hovered above them, eager to sink down and cover them for the rest of the evening. The wine is simmering pleasantly in her veins too. Usually, she keeps to watered wine (and small sips of it) during feasts to keep her head clear, but tonight she’s drinking freely, the tension which has built in her shoulders over the past few days loosening with each sip.

When she looks back up, Jon’s watching her with warmth in his eyes and a smile lingering on his lips.

“Ghost has pups,” he says. “Four of them. Three months old or so. One white, like him. One the color of sand. And two amber girls.”

Sansa lets out a little whimper. “Are you getting one?”

“I’d have to fight his mate for it--and I’d lose.”

“Ghost has a mate and pups.” Sansa touches her heart, another whimper escaping her. She can see them so clearly, remembers just how Lady looked at that age, and her heart clenches painfully. “ _Everyone’s_ having children.”

“Aye. Everyone but us.”

“You never know. Tormund might still have a trick up his sleeve. Mind your tankard, he’ll drop a love potion into it.”

“That big oaf? I’d like to see him trying without getting caught.”

Jon smiles again. Even though she just dumped one terrible thing after another over him, he smiles. While she's had time to process and mourn, he hasn't and yet he seems entirely unaffected, as if he’s collecting news like acorns and squirreling them away for a winter alone in the wilderness before rushing toward the next topic lest he shows her a hint of emotion. But then they were never close, never opened up or shared more than absolutely necessary.

Still, the wine has loosened more than the tension in her shoulders and her lips start moving on their own. “Are you all right? That was a lot of news in one day.”

“I’m fine. But, I suppose… If there’s anything else, I might just as well get it now.”

She hums against the lip of the wine cup as she searches through her memory. Then she complies by rattling off one thing after another, like how Podrick’s seducing first the wife and then the daughter of a lord had him killed. How Sam’s mother passed away a few years earlier, shortly after her daughter wed a nice man. How Sam and Gilly live with Talla at Horn Hill from where Sam often travels to Oldtown to continue his education without being apart from his family for too long. How Gendry found love quickly and passionately with his cousin and bride only for the love to cool after their first babe and how he now has at least three bastards beside the sons his wife gave him and--

“But he’s a _bastard_ ,” Jon says, frowning.

“He’s a powerful lord."

“No, I mean-- He knows what it’s like. To be a bastard. Why would he…?”

“It was never like that for him. The way it was for you. He was hardly the only fatherless boy in Fleabottom. And now he’s a lord--a rather handsome lord at that--and women are throwing themselves at his feet. He’s taking care of them, though. His children.”

“He’s raising them?”

“No,” Sansa says, chuckling, “his wife would _not_ agree to that.”

“And she agrees to him…” Waving his hand, Jon searches for words.

“Finding pleasure elsewhere?” Sansa fills in. “Wives have to accept certain things, Jon. It’s more rare that a husband stays faithful than that he doesn’t. Bastards are expected.”

“Yes but--” He sighs, shaking his head. “I would never. If I married, I’d be faithful.”

“It really is a shame you refuse to find someone.” She takes a sip of her wine. “You could make a lucky woman moderately happy one day.”

Jon sits up straight, watching her with his head tipped slightly back. “Moderately?”

“I _have_ lived with you. I ran this castle for you, like your wife would’ve had you bothered to marry. I know what you’re like--and you’re not easy.”

Jon huffs out a smile. “And you are?”

“I’m delightful,” she says dryly.

He laughs at that, a good laugh that crinkles his eyes and spreads a pleasant warmth in her chest.

“Was it really that awful?” he asks. “Living with me.”

Sansa lowers her wine cup slowly, mind sorting through a million possible answers, but before she’s thought of what to say, Jon gives a lopsided shrug, staring at the tankard he’s turning in his hands.

“I thought we had a few nice evenings at least.”

“When we barely said two words to one another?”

“I liked that,” he says so softly she barely hears him over the noise in the hall. “Just being quiet together. And sometimes you would sing. Was sort of nice.”

“I sang?”

“Aye.” Looking up at her, he lifts one corner of his mouth in a charming smile. “I don’t think you noticed. You were too focused on your work. But sometimes you sang.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I thought it was nice anyway.”

He lifts the tankard to his mouth and once his face is hidden, Sansa finds her mouth spilling words without her permission.

“It _was_ nice. To be quiet together.”

Jon swallows his drink and gives her another smile, blinking softly, and something she’s worked so hard on smothering trembles deep in her chest, as if reminding her it’s still clinging to life and ready to grow strong again if only she lets it. But she won’t. She won’t let it, won’t return that smile or the tenderness in his gaze, and Jon clears his throat and returns his attention to his ale.

“So what’s it like now? In Westeros. Your prince is king, isn’t he?”

“It’s stable. This time more Houses got involved in the process. And I suppose they wanted someone as far from the Lannisters and the Targaryen and the Starks as possible. Drustan was chosen because he’s handsome and can be very charming when he wants to be--the people adore him--but he does good work too. It’s a rare thing, isn’t it? To find a king who's both charismatic and competent."

“Aye, that is rare.” Jon’s jaw tightens. “Do you ever regret it? Rejecting him.”

“I told you I didn’t.”

“Sansa,” he says, looking at her as if she were a small child denying with sugar-sticky lips that she’s the one who’d nicked a lemon cake, “sometimes you’re not entirely honest.”

“ _I’m_ not entirely honest?” Lips pursed, she arches an eyebrow and shakes her head at him. “I don't regret it. We had a lovely time together, Drustan and I-- _really_ lovely--but that doesn’t mean… What?”

Jon’s gawking at her, his bearded chin hanging low, and her words come back to her. The way she said it, how she licked her lips and grazed her bottom lip with her teeth in the little pause before _really_. Because she’s in the dress Drustan gave her, steeped in the memory of his kisses, and red wine always made her a bit… Well. Heat rushes to her cheeks and she hides it behind the cup, drinking of the rich red liquid.

“He was your lover,” Jon says, hoarsely. “You took a _lover_?”

He says it as if she’d confessed to riding through Wintertown as naked as on her nameday once a month rather than enjoying a man's company for a spell.

With a deep intake of breath, Sansa straightens her back and looks into his eyes without wavering. “I did take a lover. Does that shock you?”

“It does a bit, yeah.”

“It’s not as if I bedded half of Westeros. It was only the one. But”--eyes still locked with his, she darts her tongue out to wet her lips--“it was a _very_ satisfying experience.”

A thrill shoots through her when his jaw drops farther, his eyes as big and round as eggs and his face the color of parchment. 

“Do you need more ale, Jon? You look a bit pale.”

“No, it’s just…” Brow furrowed, he clears his throat and shifts on the bench. “I just have a hard time picturing you with a lover.”

“You’re trying to picture me with a lover?”

His face changes color into a deep red and another thrill shoots through her, spreading a brilliantly effervescent sensation that leaves her almost more light-headed and tingling than the wine. 

“I was surprised, that’s all,” he says, eyes flitting around as if there’s anything behind her other than a drab wall of stone and a floor candelabra. 

“It started before Bettley started courting me, continued during, and didn’t end until after I rejected Drustan’s proposal.” She swirls the wine in her cup. “Quite a bit after.”

“ _What_?” He’s gawking again and she can’t help the smile growing on her face; Jon’s eyes narrow. “Are you having me on?”

“Your reaction is amusing. But, no, it’s true.”

“Happy to amuse,” he says, leaning back with a hand on the table. Then he exhales deeply before raising his tankard and putting on a smile (even though he still looks at her as if she grew into a different person before his very eyes). “And I’m happy for you, Sansa. You deserve some good experiences.”

They drink to that, emptying cup and tankard, and Sansa gestures at a serving maid to fill them up. Not until the girl’s at their table and staring at Jon as if he were a crystal clear spring in the Dornish desert, does Sansa realize it’s Freista. As a chambermaid, Freista doesn’t usually do this work, but then it wouldn’t be the first time a girl convinces the steward to move her around when they’re sweet on one of the guests. She’s pulled the corset tight too, practically spilling out of it, and has lined her blue eyes with coal and pinched her cheeks into a lovely shade of pink.

She’s beautiful, that girl. Any other red-blooded man would’ve stared until his eyes popped out of his head, but Jon only watches the ale being poured, and once his tankard is full, he thanks her with a polite smile and a nod, and Freista’s hopeful little smile fades.

Sipping her wine, Sansa watches him until Freista has left them for a different table full of much more appreciative guests.

“Why don’t you want her? She’s more than pretty enough.”

“Who?”

“Freista. The maid who tried to seduce you. She just poured you ale?”

Jon shrugs. “I’m not interested.”

“Does that mean what Tormund said is true?"

He sighs deeply. "I don't have a prob--"

"You really do want a lady.”

He watches her for a beat before looking away. “If I did, would that be so strange? I grew up in a bleeding castle. It's the kind of woman I was raised to admire.”

“It’s not strange at all. I’m only asking because…” Steadying herself with one hand pressing against the bench, she indicates the hall with the other in a sweeping motion. “As luck would have it, you have plenty of ladies to choose from. Some, I’ve noticed, have looked your way quite a lot tonight. Despite the hair and the beard.”

Jon rolls his eyes, drinks more ale. Angrily.

“I could introduce you, if you like.”

“How many times do I have to say that I’m not interested?”

“So you’ve had no one in five years? _No one_. That can’t be healthy. Not for a man.”

“Sansa…” 

A plea in his voice, a warning. Stay silent, it says, leave it. Change the subject. But the wine in her veins urges her on.

“If you’re afraid of leaving someone with child, there are ways to avoid it. You don’t have to spill inside her.” She pauses to watch him squirm, then: “Aren’t you frustrated?”

His nostrils flare. “Are you?”

Humming, she runs her fingers absentmindedly through the ends of her braid. “Sometimes I miss…”

_Being touched._

Oh, she has her handmaidens who help her wash and dress and comb her hair, and Tormund always squeezes her tight when they see each other. Gilly has a hug for her too, and Sam. But it’s not enough--and it’s not the same. It’s not desire. It’s not _tenderness_. That’s what she misses more than anything. A featherlight caress over her cheekbone. A kiss as soft as petals against the curve of her shoulder. Gentle fingers combing through her hair while she rests upon a chest with someone else’s heartbeat against her ear. Entangled legs and a whispered good morning in a sleep-warm bed.

“Sometimes I miss being touched as _Sansa_ ,” she murmurs. “No hands of duty washing my hair or massaging my shoulders. I want to be touched because someone desires _me_. Don’t you want that?”

Lashes fluttering, she looks up at Jon and he’s watching her not in shock but in quiet surprise and there’s nothing amusing about that at all. She forgot herself, opened up too much, and showed him a part of her he should never see. 

“Oh, right,” she rushes out, cheeks tingling with heat. “You have your little problem.”

“I do not have a little problem.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“You’re the one who can’t shut up about it. Not me. If you’re afraid of getting pregnant, then there are ways of avoiding it. You said it yourself. So what’s stopping _you_? You could have any man you want.”

 _Not_ any _man. Not the one I--_

“You’re right.” She tilts her chin up. “Nothing’s stopping me.”

Craning her neck, she looks out over the sea of wildlings in the room and touches the tip of her tongue to her top lip as if she’s considering a delicious selection.

“I want a handsome one, who’d make cute babies. If I’m inviting him into my bed, I could just as well. I do need an heir. You could help me.”

“I could what?"

“You know them, don’t you?” 

“I don’t think--”

“How about that one?” She nods at an older man with silver streaks in his black hair. “The one talking to Davos. What’s he like?”

It takes Jon a long moment of gaping at her before he turns to look over his shoulder. “Old?”

“What does that matter? Old men can have babies and he’s handsome enough. Would he treat me well?”

Jon’s mouth opens and closes and opens again. He fills it with ale. Swallows. Exhales. “He lost his wife. He still loves her.”

“He won't do. I don’t want my lover to picture another woman when he’s inside me.”

Jon chokes on his ale, coughing into the crook of is elbow, and she can’t help but chuckle at him.

“What about that one,” she says, eyeing a man with long fair locks and cornflower blue eyes and the prettiest lips she’s ever seen on a man. “He looks like a prince from a song.”

“Sounds like just your type.”

Jon turns again to look over his shoulder, scanning the room in such an obvious way her hand shoots out on its own volition to grab his hand. His head snaps back to her.

“Stop it,” she hisses. “He’ll know we’re talking about him.”

“And how am I going to look at all these men you want unless I turn around?”

She should laugh this off and change the subject or tell him to join the other guests, but the wine-soaked part of her that is thrilled whenever he’s flustered, that tingles whenever he gawks at her in shock, has drowned out all common sense. She’s running on instinct and impulse and foolishness.

Sansa scoots to the side and pats the empty seat next to her, tugging at his hand to encourage him to join her on the side facing the rest of the hall.

His finger twitch against hers. His chest rises and falls. He looks behind him again, looks at the seat she patted. Doesn’t look at her. She sighs loudly, and when he looks at her after all, she’s immature enough to pout and Jon sighs too. The deep, tired sigh of defeat. Then he makes a big show of dragging himself to her side of the table where they huddle together like best friends eager to gossip.

“Well?” she whispers. “What’s he like?”

"He’s pretty and he knows it. He’s bedded more people than the rest of us put together and he has the warts to prove it.”

Sansa gasps, grabbing Jon’s hand reflexively as she exchanges a scandalized look with him. “He does not.”

“He does.”

“And how do you know?”

“Everyone knows. Everyone _avoids_ him.”

She wrinkles her nose and turns her attention to a table full of boisterous wildlings, among which a kind-looking man with dark hair sits. “He looks nice,” she says, nodding at him. “The stout one sitting next to Dim.”

“Really? He looks like Sam.”

“Oh, you're right. He does." She shudders. "I couldn't. Sam's like a brother to me. Hm. How about that one. With the short red hair. He’s got kind eyes. Nice hands too.”

“He’s got six children by four women. Does that sound like a good candidate?”

Sansa hums, tilting her head to the side. “At least he has strong seed.”

Jon huffs out a laugh. “Aye, take him then. He’s got lots of practice; he’ll show you a good time.”

She nudges him with her shoulder. “You’re good at this.”

“What, gossiping?”

“It’s only gossiping when wives or daughters do it. I’m a queen and you’re my Master of Whisperers. We’re sharing information. Tell me more. How about the ones talking to Tormund?”

Jon smiles at her, shaking his head. “The one to the right likes men and only men. The other one likes nothing. Not women, not men, not animals--”

“ _Animals_?” Her fingers tightens around his hand as she turns more fully toward him, her knee digging into his thigh. “Are you implying that some of them do?”

“Aye.” He leans in so close his breath caresses her ear when he whispers, gooseflesh spreading across her body with each word. “The one by the window with the drinking horn? He fucks goats. A dog once.”

She grabs Jon’s arm with both hands. “No! But he looks so normal!"

“I swear it. Don't go near that man."

She heaves a sigh and releases her hold on his arm, smoothing out the wrinkles in his black sleeve. “You know what this means, don't you?”

“What?” he says, turning his head to her.

“There’s only one option left.” She looks up at him through her lashes and finds him so stunned she's could swear he's stopped breathing. A smile twitches at her lips, a giggle bubbles in her stomach, but she inhales deeply through her nose and keeps her composure. “Davos.”

“ _What_?” Jon rolls his shoulders. Eases out a breath. “No.”

“No? It’s not your choice, Jon.”

“You can’t bed Davos. He’s like a father to us!”

“No, he's the father to my future babies.”

“How drunk are you?”

“Very.” She meets his glare with a sweet smile. “Oh, all right. Not Davos. You’re right. It would be awkward. There’s only you then.”

"Yeah," he says, breathing out in a relieved smile. 

She sees the exact moment her words register. One moment he's smiling, the next he goes very very still. His eyes widen. Then he blanches for half a heartbeat before crimson suffuses his whole face.

The giggle in her belly grows and grows. She pushes it down and continues in the most casual voice she can: “Tormund is right. You’re really the only man I could invite into my bed. Drustan suggested it too and--”

“You're lying," Jon says, scowling. "He doesn’t even know me.”

“No, but I’ve talked about you. I’ve talked about my whole family. So he knows there’s no one else I can trust. Only you. Too bad you have your little problem.”

“I don’t have a problem!”

“No? Well, then. Take me to bed, my wildling lover.”

Redder than a pomegranate Jon sputters out something incoherent and she can’t hold it in anymore. She giggles in a way she hasn't done since she and Meera drank wine beneath the heart-tree one summer night and confessed secrets until dawn broke and they were so drunk and tired nothing made sense anymore and everything was hilarious, and it makes her feel incredibly silly and more than a little bit awful for teasing him so and yet she can’t stop. Not until she notices Jon’s wounded look and empathy returns.

“I’m joking, you idiot.” She pokes his warm cheek. “You’re blushing.”

“Is that funny to you?”

“I didn't know grown men could get that red."

Jon looks away, shaking his head at her. “You’ve blushed tonight too.”

“I have?”

He turns back to look at her and he’s so close she can smell the ale on his breath and it should be nauseating but it’s not. Not at all. He smells so good she’s going a bit mad, and with his wildling hair and dark clothes he looks like a man who could carry her to bed and have his way with her until she collapses from pleasure. He looks different. As if he's not quite Jon, as if nothing she says or does quite counts, and it's exhilarating and his hands are _so_ big. She’s never noticed that before, just how big his hands are while still gentle and elegant, designed by the gods to touch a woman, to touch her, but now she can barely think about anything else. She can barely think about anything but for how long she held his hand earlier and how he did absolutely nothing to pull it away. 

He finds her beautiful. She's noticed that. It's why she thought, for a while, that _maybe_... One of the reasons, at least. How his eyes would linger on her. But noting beauty doesn't necessarily mean _desire_. But what if he does? Desire her. He might not love her and never did, but what if he wants to be--

“...your lover,” he says. 

“Yes,” she breathes out. "What?"

“That’s when you blushed. When you talked about your lover."

Sansa blinks. “You remember the exact moment.”

“It stood out. I never thought you’d… You surprised me. But I suppose five years is a long time. Why wouldn’t you change? You’re a queen now. Queens take lovers.”

She picks at the embroidery on her sleeve. “Do you find me very different?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand you, but then I never did so I’m not sure anything’s changed at all.”

“You’ve not changed much. Well”--she loses her mind completely and wraps a lock of his hair around her fingers--”I suppose you have in _some_ ways.”

He unwinds the hair from her fingers and puts her hand back in her lap, patting the back of her hand as if it were a naughty puppy in need of encouragement to stay in its basket.

“I must have. You didn’t even recognize me.”

“You look like a wildling, Jon. There’s no difference between you and the rest of the men in Tormund’s retinue.”

They look out over the smattering of long-haired men among the more well-groomed lords and ladies, and there among them stands Davos. He perks up when he sees them, already heading toward their table with brisk steps. Out of nowhere, Tormund crashes into him, slings his arm around Davos’ shoulders, and turns him around. Then he whispers something in Davos’ ear and leads him to a group of people where they join the conversation.

“Did you see that?” Sansa laughs. “Tormund doesn’t want Davos to join us. He must be getting his hopes up I’ll heal your little problem after all.”

“Seven hells, Sansa. I don’t have a problem!”

“Do you think he’s done it all night? We’ve been sitting here for ages and no one’s approached.”

“Probably, yeah.” Jon reaches for his tankard and looks down at his arm. A fallen wood anemone rests among the crinkles in his sleeve. “You lost a flower,” he says and offers it to her from the palm of his hand. 

“You put it back.” She angles her head to give him access to her braid. “I don’t have a mirror.”

“And I’m not a handmaiden."

He obliges nonetheless, gently pressing the flower back into place, and she can’t help but wonder why he’s still by her side.

Why he’s sitting so close to her, indulging her in silly little games, letting her tease him until he blushes, smiling at her once the flower is in place in a way she feels deep in her belly. Even tucking a wayward lock of hair behind her ear for good measure which is a gesture so tender she can almost forget how angry she still is in her heart. How hurt.

If she didn’t know better, she’d call it flirting. Or something close to it, at least. But then, even though he barely looks it anymore, he’s Jon and people fall in love with Jon wherever he goes without him doing a thing. They follow him into battle, they change their allegiances for him, they betray their allies for him, they postpone their dreams for him, and they hail him their king. All because of his smile and his husky voice and his warm brown eyes and his stupid hair and his willingness to do what’s right. People want to serve him, befriend him, bed him, love him. And they all feel special. He makes them all feel special.

 _That is who he is, little dove_. An unvarnished voice reaches her through the fog of wine. _That is what he does just by being him. His smiles mean nothing. His looks mean nothing. His touch means nothing. You’re not special. You never were special to him. You were only ever obligation. Someone to protect lest your father’s ghost came back to murder him. And you let it fool you like the stupid little girl you are._

Drustan loved her. She learned what being loved was like from him and after that she knew the truth: Jon tolerated her. She can’t afford to forget that just because he whirls back into her life all wild in his dark clothes and long hair he sometimes tosses over his shoulder in a way that doesn’t look like Jon at all while looking at her with big brown eyes that beg for forgiveness.

He’s not her Jon. He never was. The man she thought she knew, the man she loved, never existed. He was someone she made up in her head and projected onto the only man in her life she could trust. And this man who’s sitting by her side just wants absolution. _That’s_ why he’s indulging her. She heard Tormund talking about it earlier, how they’ll go to Sam next. How it’s time Jon lets him yell a bit and mends his relationship with him too. Sansa’s just at the top of the list because she was closest on the map.

Jon tilts his tankard, glancing down into it. “Another round?”

“If I have more, you’ll have to carry me to bed.”

She bites back a groan at her thoughtless mouth, but Jon only flashes her a smile.

“Tormund would love that.”

Sansa clasps her hands in her lap. “I think I’m going to turn in for the night.”

“Aye, I should too. I’ll escort you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“We are neighbors. I’m heading that way, anyway. And I suspect you could use an arm to lean on too.”

“I’m not _that_ drunk. You really don’t need to escort me.”

“All right. I won’t.” Jon gets to his feet to let her out but, as she rises, the world tilts beneath her feet and her traitorous hands fumble for his arm instinctively. “Changed your mind?”

Sansa sniffs and holds her head high. “No.”

Jon squints at her, a slow smile growing on his lips. “I see. You worried Tormund will get ideas.”

“I’m not worried,” she says a bit too quickly.

“You are,” he says, leading her out on the floor. “It was all fun and games while you were teasing me, but now that it's about _you_ , it's not so fun anymore, is it?"

“I'm not worried." Despite her heated cheeks, she forces herself to meet his eyes. "Escort me to my chambers."

"Of course, Your Grace."

"Don't call me that."

"Certainly not, My Queen."

She glowers at him but Jon only laughs. And across the hall, as if he has a sixth sense or perhaps is merely in the habit of watching them constantly, Tormund notices that they're leaving together and shoots them a grin so wide and delighted, Sansa feels as if her whole body blushes.

"Oh, that's adorable." Jon's voice low and dark in her ear. "You're blushing. A woman grown."

"Shut up."

She quickens her step and they duck out the backdoor and into the cool spring evening where she sucks in lungfuls of Winterfell-scented air to clear her head. For the briefest moment, she feels almost sober. Jon's right. It's not that fun anymore. Soon she'll sleep and all too quickly morning will come and with it a headache laced with regret and shame she'd rather do without.

“I wasn’t really suggesting that I take you as my lover,” she says, leaning heavily on his arm as they walk up the stairs to the Great Keep. “I was joking.”

“I know, Sansa.”

She walks through the door he holds up for her and they’re inside the quiet torchlit hallway where he offers his arm again and they walk _so_ close the scent of him fills her lungs and intoxicates her anew. Whatever epiphany came to her in the courtyard stayed out there. In here there's only Jon and the way he smells and the way he leads her toward her chamber, all silent and steady and strong. She leans her head on his shoulder just to see whether he’ll allow it. He does. He even releases her arm to wrap his arm around her back and secure her to him and she doesn’t love him anymore--she doesn’t--but _gods_ how her body wants him. It was never like this before. This hunger in her didn't exist back then, but now it does and it's been so long and she used to dream of having his babies and--

“There would be no point,” her lips say quite on their own. “Since you can’t get hard.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have a problem!”

“Tormund says you do and he knows you better than anyone.”

“Tormund knows shit.”

“It’s all right, Jon,” she whispers. “I’m sure it’s much more common than one might think.”

He practically growls out a breath; she wants to kiss his stupid growling throat.

“And you _are_ getting rather old. I hear that ability can go away once you get older.”

“I’m not even thirty!”

“Oh, that’s tragic. Not even thirty and already has a--”

“Will you stop it? I don’t have a problem!”

“You’re right.” She stops outside her door, releasing him reluctantly. “I shouldn’t tease. It’s a serious problem. But now you’re my guest and Maester Wolkan truly is a very talented maester. I’m sure--”

“I don’t. Have. A problem."

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about--”

“Do you want me to prove it to you?”

With eyes darker than a starless night, he grabs her hip and presses his lean body against her and her lips fall open with a gasp and then he’s gone, backing away from her while stuttering out an apology and Sansa’s ears ring and her body is so hot her skin prickles and the wine and his scent and the way his tunic falls from his chest do something stupid to her head.

“Would I get a baby out of it?”

Jon blinks. “What?”

Sansa licks her lips. Slowly. Takes a step closer to him, ignoring how her wobbling legs ruin her sensual saunter. “If I invite you into my chamber, will you prove it to me? That you don’t have a problem. Will you give me a baby?"

Jon’s eyes flit between hers. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.” Another unsteady step closer. “I want a baby, Jon.”

“Yesterday you could barely look at me, and today you want me to…” He bristles, shoulders rising almost to his ears. “You’re mad.”

“I’m desperate. Tormund’s right. There’s no one I trust. No one but you. Believe me, this is not ideal for me, but I want a baby and you’re my only choice.”

“You’re not serious,” he says, but he doesn’t sound as convinced this time.

“I wasn’t lying when I said Drustan suggested it. He did. And I _have_ thought about this. I have. But I never thought you’d come back home.”

“You’re drunk, Sansa,” he says, gently. “You wouldn’t say this if you weren’t drunk.”

“No, I wouldn’t because this is _humiliating_. But there’s an ache in my body. Every time I see a baby, I _ache_. Hearing about how everyone around me is having one baby after another… I have to pretend to be happy for them, but on the inside it hurts, Jon. It hurts so much and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to trust another man. Not with my body. Not with my child. Not with our safety." A third step, the distance between them closed. "Yes, I’m drunk. But I want a baby and tomorrow you’ll leave and let’s not pretend you’ll ever return. You won’t. I’ll never see you again. I have nothing to lose.”

She runs the tips of her fingers from his shoulder down his arm until she catches his hand. Then, pulling him with her, she backs to her door and he follows her like a man entranced, his mouth and eyes wide open.

“You haven't said no yet. I'm not so drunk I haven't noticed that. So…” She pulls him closer still. “Will you come in and fuck me or not?”

Jon jolts, blinking rapidly. “What?”

“I want you to fuck me.” She puts her other hand on the doorknob and gives it a push; the door glides open an inch. “Yes or no, Jon.”

The hallway fills with the sound of his breathing, with the sound of her pounding heart. Jon’s gaze glide from her face to the door and back to her face again. He closes his mouth and swallows. Hard. She holds her breath and counts her heartbeats and--

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and then his door opens and closes and she’s alone.

Her breath rushes out of her and she slinks inside her chambers and curls up in bed, dress and shoes and flowers and all, and pulls the furs up over her head.

At least tomorrow he’ll be gone and she’ll never see him again. And he’ll never tell anyone about this, not even Tormund. Not even Sam. Jon wouldn’t. Not this. No one will know. It will be as if the most humiliating moment of her life never happened.


	9. An Arrangement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: hints of a past abortion. Nothing graphic.

When he killed the Halfhand, something inside Jon went numb. It had to, for him to keep doing his duty and protect the realm. And each time he took a life, each time he forced himself to do something that repulsed him or terrified him, that numbness ate at the goodness in him so that it grew and grew, and he wondered for how long he could contain it. When would it burst? When would there be nothing good in him left?

When would he break?

Everything about her is so soft it’s intoxicating. Her hands, her scent, her hair, her body. Everything about her is so soft but her tongue and her wit and the looks she sometimes cuts him. It stirs things in him, that softness (the lack of it). It lets blood back in, turning the ashy grey into rosy pink. Not enough to heal properly, no, but enough to remember what it was like before. Enough to know it _could_ heal if only he gives in, but he is not a good man anymore. Not really.

Oh, he ducked into the chamber before he could take what he wanted from someone too drunk to give it, but now that he’s alone in a hearth-lit chamber that no longer belongs to him, he takes himself in hand and imagines what could’ve been had he said yes. And as he collapses in bed to sleep, he still thinks about her and the flowers in her hair and that hungry look in her hooded eyes and how he really would be better off numbing this too. How _she_ would be better off for he is not a good man.

The faces tell him as much. Never with words. They only ever stare down at him in mute judgment. But those eyes--those blank eyes set in the harrowed faces of those who’ve witnessed unspeakable horrors--are louder than any words could ever be. The watch him passively as he drowns in a mush of blood and ashes, as he desperately swims up up up for air, as he claws at the mulch of blistered, charred limbs trapping him in that gory hell until a patch of blue opens up above. A patch of cool winter sky. He can’t breathe down here. He needs that blue, that air, that cold. The heat is sloughing the flesh off his bones. He can’t breathe. It’s too hot and he’s sinking and sinking, that spot of cool blue growing smaller and smaller and he can’t breathe. He needs it and he calls her name over and over, his burned fingers reaching for that blue, and--

Hands fisting the damp sheets, Jon sits up in bed and pants into the dim room. Before him is the hearth, flames eating at logs on a bed of ashes. A fire built by a dutiful maid who doesn't know. He squeezes his eyes shut. Then he feels it. That blue. The most wonderful flow of fresh air wafting over him, cooling down his scorching, drenched body. He leans his head back until his hair spills over the pillows and lets that chill reach his sweat-soaked neck while his racing heart begins to calm.

“Jon?”

His eyes fly open. She stands by the window, the midnight wind stirring the gossamer fabric flowing from her waist, and his heartbeat quickens again.

“You were screaming,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean to… You were screaming for help.”

Did he scream for her? Her name. In his dream he screamed her name. He can still taste it on his tongue.

(He can still taste the ashes.)

“You’re soaking wet.” She gestures at the open window. “I thought…” Then she shakes her head and starts walking toward the door. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be in here.”

“Thank you,” he manages to get out and she stops right in front of the hearth, the flames glowing through her dress, eager to devour, and he has to force himself to keep looking at her. “I’m not used to sleeping indoors.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Your nightmare.”

He makes his mouth smile. “Can’t remember.”

“Does it happen often?”

“Never. I think I had too much ale, that’s all.”

“Maybe it’s being back here,” she murmurs, eyes averted. “I could stay by the door until you fall back asleep. Like you used to do with me. If you’d like?”

He shakes his head, flings the furs aside, and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, resting there for a moment. He has to take measured breaths to hide how heavy his breathing still is.

“I just need some air.”

Shadow takes him up the Kingsroad and down the well-trodden path to the mere. There Jon slides down on the ground and wades straight into the water until it reaches his waist. Then he folds his legs and holds his breath and sinks beneath the surface until every part of him is cold and numb and his mind is blank. He only rises once his lungs ache. He should make a fire, he should return to warmth, but Shadow is warm enough and pleasantly warm too. The warmth of a beating heart and a soft coat. He curls up by her side on a bed of yellow grass combed slick to the ground by wind and the now-melted winter snows, and drifts into dreams of children playing in the godswood while their proud parents look on. He dreams of a soft hand in his. He dreams by design.

The morning sun’s gentle rays caress him awake. Shadow is drinking from the mere. While she wears her saddle, the saddlebags are still in the chamber. Saddlebags full of things he needs. _Fuck_.

He left Sansa too. In his chamber. When he walked out the door, she still stood by the hearth in her pretty blue dress, white flowers still dotting her copper braid. As if she hadn’t slept at all--or as if she was so drunk she’d just collapsed in bed. A bed she wanted him in. A bed she might lie in at this very moment, thinking back on last night just as him, wondering what it would’ve been like to wake up entangled and naked together.

Unless she was too drunk to remember… Maybe she’s forgotten she asked him to be her bleeding stud horse. Maybe she’s forgotten she held his hand for what felt like an eternity and the briefest moment all at once. Maybe she’s forgotten she looked at him with something akin to desire.

_Stop deluding yourself. It wasn’t desire. She wanted a babe not you._

It looked like desire, though. Like want. 

Oh, it doesn’t matter. He rejected her and she’ll never ask again.

Maybe she’s still asleep. She _was_ really drunk and it's early.

With a groan, Jon rolls over on his back and watches the morning sky. Two swallows dart past him, way up high. A falcon soars even higher, ostensibly looking for breakfast. His own stomach growls. There’s food back at Winterfell. Bread still warm from the oven. Porridge sprinkled with dried berries and nuts. Hard-boiled eggs. Butter and preserves and slices of ham and no bleeding fish he’s pulled up himself. His stomach growls again, mouth watering. 

Yes. She’s still asleep. He needs those saddlebags. He needs to fill his belly before he leaves.

* * *

Wildings, servants, workers, and horses overflow the courtyard, the noise of them filling the scant space in between. Jon dismounts and hands the reins to Oskar, eyes moving over the never-still throng in search of a copper braid or a demure dove gray dress as he tries making himself inconspicuous.

Strong arms wrap around him, squeezing him tight, even jostling him a bit. “Ah, there you are! I thought you were still in her bed. How did it go? Let me look at you.” Grabbing Jon’s shoulders, Tormund holds him out in front of him and gives him a look-over. His big grin dies. “Well, fuck. That bad, huh?”

“You leaving?”

“Mm. We’re going to Sam. If you’re coming with us you need to hurry up. The boat leaves Sea Dragon Point tonight. We need to get on the road.”

Jon glances up at the Keep, at Sansa’s window. The shutters are open, but she might've forgotten to close them last night. He takes another good look around the courtyard, searching the walkways too. She’s not there. And if she’s not there to say goodbye she must be asleep. 

“I need to get my saddlebags," he says.

“Where have you been?” Tormund’s right eye narrows. “What happened last night?”

“Nothing.”

“No,” Tormund drawls, “something happened. I saw you two. She wanted you. She was practically sitting in your lap, for fuck’s sake. How did you fuck that up?” Tormund leans in close and speaks in a low voice, “Was it your problem? Because there are ways to fix that. You mix one raw egg, a dash of piss from a mare in heat, the cock of a rooster, and--”

“Would you please shut up? It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

Jon dips his chin, a messy swath of hair shadowing his face and the din around them a shield protecting them from curious ears. “She doesn’t love me,” he murmurs.

“Does she have to?”

Slowly, Jon raises his head to look at Tormund. Does she? Could he do it? A drunken tumble that satisfies the flesh but not the heart. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s something to hold onto that when winter comes. When the nightmares do. And if there’s a child… 

“I don’t know her heart,” Tormuns says. “She nurtures secrets like babes at her breast. But I know when a woman is horny and that woman was horny. She wanted you. She”--he pokes Jon in the chest with one meaty finger--“wanted _you_. Davos noticed too. We assumed you two fucked all night.”

Jon glances around the courtyard until he finds Davos. Their eyes meet. Davos nods at him with a knowing smile and Jon feels his cheeks heat up. She did invite him to her side of the table and, even though she could’ve scooted more to the side, she didn’t. She sat really close. She couldn’t stop touching him. And then they left the Great Hall together. Arm in arm. Blushing. _Everyone_ must've assumed they fucked all night.

Jon’s cheeks grow hotter still.

“You should stay, my little crow. Remember what I told you about those pretty lips of yours. Put them to good use. In more ways than one, eh?”

Tormund elbows him in the side with a wide grin, but Jon’s eyes drift back to Sansa’s window.

Could he?

Maybe a fleeting something is better than a perpetually aching nothing. 

* * *

* * *

The stench of red wine and sick fills the chamber. Sansa rubs her aching head. A spatter of dried sick decorates the wash basin and the floor beneath. Her stomach turns. She covers her mouth with her hand and then the chamberpot is beneath her nose and she empties the contents of her stomach until there’s nothing left.

“There we go.” Kari strokes her back. “Can you stand? Need to get you out of your pretty dress before you ruin it, and into a bath. Come now. Feet on the floor. Arms out."

Following Kari’s bright commands, Sansa gets out of her dress, corset, and smallclothes, and waits until her handmaiden’s secured her hair in a bun atop her head before sinking with a content hum into a tub full of hot water smelling of lavender and rose.

“Would Your Grace like the gossip now or later?”

Eyes closed, Sansa leans her head back against the pillow attached to the rim of the tub. “Is there something I _should_ know before I head out there?"

“Only that half the castle talks about Your Grace and your cousin. They say you spent the night together. But I know it’s not true and I’ll make sure everyone else does too, don’t you worry. The rest can wait, Your Grace.”

Sansa nods, sinking deeper into the water until it reaches the tip of her nose and covers half her ears while Kari pulls the linen off the bed and leaves them and yesterday’s clothes to the laundress, empties the chamberpot, lays out one of Sansa’s softest dresses of pale gray goat wool she favors when she’s under the weather, and opens the shutters to replace the sickening miasma with fresh air. Fresh air that carries the clamor of too many people talking and horses neighing and a hammers hitting steel and other noises that bleed together and throb in Sansa’s head.

Gripping the rim, she sits up and squints against the daylight. “Why is everything so _loud_?”

“King Tormund is getting ready to leave.” Kari pushes herself up on tiptoes and glances out the window. “Him, ser Davos, and Your Grace’s cousin. Shall I ask them to wait so that you can say goodbye?”

Sansa sinks back into the warm water. “No, it’s all right. Can you close the shutters? I have a headache.”

“This chamber needs to be aired out. And it needs a good scrubbing too.” Kari gives her a look far too similar to her mother’s admonishing expression for Sansa to feel a queen. “There’s no polite way to say this, Your Grace, so I ain’t gonna try. It reeks. And you need to eat something.”

“I’ll have my breakfast in the small dining chamber. And some of Wolkan’s bark tea.”

Kari curtsies and leaves the chamber; Sansa lathers a washcloth to scrub herself clean of last night’s humiliation.

* * *

With her nose buried in documents delivered this morning by courier, Sansa opens the door to the dining chamber. She should focus on them. On her work. Not on last night. She’s done overthinking all things Jon. She’s been done for four years. Now she’ll never see him again and that truly is for the best. She won’t be tied to him for the rest of her life through a child. Honestly, what was she thinking? This is why she took moontea last time. Does she never learn?

They’re from Yohn Royce, the documents. After Bran disappeared, they’ve wanted to join the North instead while the Iron Islands want to take their place and be recognized as one of the six kingdoms. Luckily, Drustan doesn’t care one way or another, but the _paperwork_. So much tedious paperwork.

She sits down in her usual seat at the head of the table and lays down the documents with one hand while rubbing her temple with the other. Then, as she reaches for the pot of steaming hot bark tea, she notices her company and knocks over the pot instead, tea flowing out of the spout.

“What are you doing?”

Jon stops chewing and swallows down his bite. “Breaking my fast.”

“Why?”

“I’m hungry?” He nods at the documents. “Mind the papers.”

Sansa gasps and quickly moves the documents before they soak up the spilled tea. Then she grabs her napkin and blots the liquid while Jon puts the pot back and secures the lid.

“I thought you’d left,” she says, face as hot as the tea.

He’s quiet for several breaths; she keeps blotting.

“I can leave,” he says, “if you want.”

Sansa drops the sodden napkin on the table and clasps her hands in her lap, eyes locked on her plate as she focuses on her breathing. There are three drops of tea on it. Three drops of tea. Slowly, she inhales and exhales once for each drop and then she’s calm. With steady hands she takes the pot and pours herself a cup, stirs in a dollop of honey. It’s Maester Wolkan’s recipe, perfected for her after she’d stayed up too late and worked herself into a migraine for the fifth time that moon.

After blowing on the hot liquid and taking two sips, she finally looks at Jon. He’s sitting only an arm’s length from her, still wild and dark and with crumbs in his beard and that helps. Those crumbs help. She doesn’t want a man with food in his beard, for goodness’ sake.

“I’m sorry for my behavior last night. It was very unbecoming, and I’m grateful to you for rejecting my incredibly inappropriate offer. I don’t know what got into me.”

“A little wine?”

Jon fires off a disarming smile. She stares at him. His smile grows. He even shrugs one shoulder in such a charming way she hates him a bit and she wants to glare, but her stupid mouth starts smiling too and she averts her head to hide it.

“You didn’t answer,” he says. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I’m not throwing you out. You're still family,” she murmurs. ”I thought you were joining Tormund.”

“No, I have work waiting for me. I’m building cabin. I need to finish before the real snow comes to the North. The true North.”

“The _true_ North? You really are a wildling now.”

“Aye. Suppose I am.”

He smiles warmly at her; she drinks more of her tea and stares at the spread of food before her and absolutely does not think about how she called him her wildling lover like an idiot.

“About last night,” he says, slowly, and her stomach churns. “You’ll find someone. You had Drustan, didn’t you? You’ll find someone like him again.”

She puts down the cup with a curt smile. “I didn’t know you could build cabins. Do you have help?”

“I do it on my own. Takes longer but… I like the quiet.” He pushes the food around his plate with the fork, eyes darting between her and what he’s doing. “Why did you ask me? You don’t even like me.”

She licks her lips. Looks away. “I thought I made that clear last night.”

“Aye, you did. But--”

“How long does it take you?” she asks, filling her plate with mustard-glazed ham. “To build a cabin.”

“Months. Takes time to cut down trees and gather all the materials needed. Shadow helps. She pulls logs for me. My horse.” He reaches for his cup of water, brings it to his lips, pauses, puts it back down on the table without drinking. “It takes more than once.”

“Pulling… logs?”

“To make a babe. It takes more than once. Usually.”

Sansa’s breathing is unnaturally loud. “Yes. Usually.” She cuts a thin strip of the ham; it tastes like parchment. “Is this your first cabin?”

“No. It’s my”--frowning, he looks up as if counting in his head--”sixth. Well, fifth on my own. Once it’s done.”

“I didn’t know that. That you’re a builder.”

“Yeah.” He drinks quickly from the cup, puts it down a bit too forcefully. They both jolt. “Did you tell the truth? When you said you’ve been thinking about it.” He gestures vaguely with one hand, cheeks faintly pink. “It just seemed like maybe it wasn’t… You were practically sitting on my lap, Sansa!”

His chin drops at his outburst, cheeks going fully red. Then his eyes slide closed and he mutters a curse word under his breath.

“I’ve been trying to change the subject,” she says, voice low and calm, “because that’s what I would’ve wanted if I were you. To pretend last night did not happen--but you won’t let me. Why? Do you _want_ me to be humiliated?"

He swallows audibly and opens his eyes but keeps them from meeting hers. “It wouldn’t work. I’m a Targaryen. My children would be Targaryens. You think that’s what the North wants? Their future king or queen. A Targaryen.”

Eyes narrowed, she regards him carefully. “Last night, you didn’t say no. You never said no.” 

She waits for a reply, a reaction. Neither comes. Jon sits frozen, his discomfort still burning on his cheeks.

Sansa’s hand moves on its own to her stomach, the thumb stroking the soft spot beneath her belly button where a child grew only once before she ended it. She’s never allowed herself to acknowledge how old it would be today had it lived, but sometimes she dreams that she let that life grow strong inside her. She dreams about her belly big and round, her heart heart full and happy. Then morning comes, bereaving her of that feeling when her hand moves down to cup the bump only to find a flat, empty stomach. 

It's never worse than that. The ache inside her.

Last night she would’ve done it. She would’ve pulled him into her chamber and done things she never even dared dreaming of back when she loved him. Today, though, when she's no longer encased in armor forged from wine and dim lights and the din of a feast, her boldness has evaporated. Could she? With him. It’s dangerous. But the butterflies are gone and her heart no longer wants and he is not Jon Snow. Not anymore.

It would be pleasure--just pleasure--and it could result in a blessing.

“Jon.” She takes a deep breath and then blurts out the rest before she thinks better of it: “Are you interested in my offer? Because it’s still on the table.”

“What offer?” He breathes out a nervous chuckle. “I never heard an offer. Only that you want to be a mother. But who would I be? Uncle Jon? No one? Just some seed provider you fuck once or however many times it takes for you to get your precious baby?”

He gives her one wounded look before ducking his head. Even behind the veil of sleep-tousled hair and that wild beard of his, can she see the sullen set of his jaw.

“If you _want_ to be a father,” she says, softly, “your chamber is still here. You can visit as much or as little as you like. You could _live_ here. I wouldn’t keep your children from you. I would never do that.”

“So they would know?” he asks so quietly she instinctively lays her hand on the table and leans closer. “They would call me father?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Jon ducks his head. “Targaryen children don’t fare well.”

“Our children would be Starks. Our children would be _protected_.”

Jon lifts his gaze to meet hers, but he holds his body like an animal unsure of whether it's facing friend or foe. In the eyes and laws of Westeros, he’s Aegon Targaryen and if he wed, his children would inherit his name, and he is right: Targaryen children don’t fare well. After what Varys did (what she did) after learning his true identity, small wonder Jon's kept to himself the past five years.

“If you have the same worry I do,” she says, “that someone would hurt your children or use them for power, if that’s why you’ve taken no wife… Jon, I would protect your children in any way I can. Even if they’re not mine. And if you long to return to Winterfell, this is still your home. Yours and mine and Arya’s and Bran’s, wherever they are. It belongs to _us_. I don’t care what man sired you. I don’t care that you and I don’t always get along. You are still a Stark to me, you will always be a Stark to me. You don’t have to give me children to receive my protection or my help or to come home.”

Jon exhales sharply. “But?"

“That’s all. House Stark will die with me unless I have a child. I can't be the reason for my House ending. If you say no, I’ll find someone else.” She gives a determined nod and she almost believes it. “It might take me a while, but I will.”

“Could you even do it?” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “With me.”

Sansa picks up the tea cup and watches him while she sips. He’s still not looking at her and it stokes the anger always simmering in her belly when she’s around him. The anger that whets her tongue and keeps her heart from leaping.

“You can’t be so oblivious you haven’t noticed the effect you have on women. And, yes, you look different. Very different. I’m not sure handsome is an accurate word anymore, but there's still a certain appeal. I think I could. With a little wine in me, I think I could. Even if it takes more than once.”

“With a little wine,” he whispers with a half-hearted chuckle and rubs his jaw. "Yeah."

"For people like us, marriage, children, it's an arrangement. This is no different. I know you'd be a good father. I know you'd put our family before anything else. I know that in your heart you are a Stark. That's why you're my first choice, why you still would be my first choice even if I found a hundred Drustans." Sansa rises from her chair. “I have paperwork to catch up on, and I have a meeting tomorrow I need to prepare for. I’ll be in my office all day. I’ll even eat in there. I often do, even though Wolkan tells me I need to sit in here more often or even take my meals outside. I shouldn’t eat in my office. I shouldn’t eat in my bed chambers. Something about stress. I don’t know.” Her thumb finds her palm. She clenches her hands into fists before relaxing them. “Take this day to think. Tonight, after dark, I’ll put on something suitable and come to your chambers. I’ll bring wine. If it’s a yes, be there. If it’s a no… Don’t."

She leaves without waiting for a reply and throws herself into work, refusing to waste a single thought on her stupid sullen cousin who can't even discuss adult matters like a normal person.

He won't be there. She knows he won't. He'll do what he always does and run away. And yet she prepares. Once night has fallen, she heads to her chambers and removes one layer after another until she’s naked in front of the looking glass. Corset lines run over scarred skin. She massages her back and stomach until they fade. Can’t do anything about those scars, though, only hide them behind something lacy and pretty and she does. Slipping into silk. Tying ribbons. Arranging ruffles to frame her chest. Letting down the loose, sensible bun at the nape of her neck so that her hair tumbles past her shoulders in glossy waves. Even applying the smallest touch of color to her lips and cheeks. And she does all of it herself. There’s no one to tell her, “You look beautiful, Your Grace.” There’s no one to tell her she’s being ridiculous and putting in too much effort for it’s only Jon. He won’t care what she looks like.

He won't even be there.

She stares at her reflection until it’s a pale pink blur. It’s good enough. Good enough for Jon.

Good enough for an empty room.

She puts on a robe, cinches it at the waist, grabs the flagon of wine, and heads to his door. There she stops. She’s made sure no guards pass tonight, made sure no chambermaids stop by to feed the hearths. The hallway is empty and quiet and dark. She hears no movement on the other side. She hears nothing but the nervous beats of her heart.

_Just open the door. Push down the handle and open the door._

She can do this. She wants a child. She needs an heir. 

(The room will be empty anyway.)

She opens the door.

Jon’s chamber is as dark and quiet as the hallway. The air leaves her lungs. When she fills them again, it’s with a shuddering little breath that leaves her flushed.

“Disappointed?” Jon asks.

He’s by the window, cast in the silver light of the moon and his beard is trimmed and his hair is cut and pulled back into a bun and he’s wearing clothes sewn by her own hand as a gift for when he was king.

_No. No no no no._

She can’t do this. Not when he looks like _Jon_.

He moves one step closer. "Sansa?"

She takes another breath, deep and steady and calming. Yes, she can. She wants a child. She needs an heir. He might _look_ like her Jon, but her Jon never existed. She won’t forget, she won’t get lost, and she can do this.

“No,” she says, closing the door behind her as she walks into the room. “Just surprised.”


	10. A Delicate Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: NSFW (also I might need to give a secondhand embarrassment warning lol. It’s occasionally very awkward before the sex happens.) Oh, and Sansa tells him more about her abortion. Still nothing graphic.
> 
> HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thank you all for being such wonderful readers and commenters, and for following my story/stories throughout 2019. It means so much to me and I would never ever do this without you. <3  
> I hope you have a good time tonight and that 2020 will be much better than 2019 lol

Sansa puts the flagon of wine on the broad, flat lid of the chest at the end of his bed. Then she sweeps her eyes over the room while he steals glances of her. Her unbound hair gleams like molten copper in the faint hearth-light, spilling down over a simple linen robe that covers something less simple. Something delicate and feminine. Lace peeks out from under it. Pale pink lace. The color of her lips. Jon drags a hand over his mouth and looks away.

“Do you have any cups?”

He finds two by the desk and they settle down on the chest, the wine and cups between them. Her robe slides open a smidge, revealing ruffles over a sliver of thigh. She pulls it firmly shut and keeps the robe in place with a white-knuckled hand; Jon busies himself with pouring them drinks. Then they sit, cup in hand, listening to the crackles and pops of the fire, and the rattles of the shutters from the wind whipping through the courtyard. 

“Maester Wolkan says a storm is coming,” she says.

“I’m glad Tormund and the others left before it hit.”

“Yes. So am I.” She takes the smallest sip; he does too. “We built a port at Sea Dragon Point a few years ago. To make trading and traveling easier. On the west coast.”

“You’ve done a lot of good.”

“I’ve not had a Night King to worry about.”

“Yeah.”

He lifts his hand to drag it through his hair, remembers that he’s wearing it in a bun now, and smooths his hand down the dark doublet instead. Tugs at the hem. She sewed it for him. Before everything broke-- No, that’s a lie. It was already fractured, their relationship. It was always fractured. They never did enough to mend it. (They did plenty to tear it asunder.)

“You cut your hair.”

“Aye. Thought you would prefer that.”

Her sharp exhale and quick inhale tell him he was wrong even before she gathers herself and delivers a, “You look very handsome,” in the polite tone of a highborn lady whose compliments only mean she’s well-bred.

Well, he’s a fucking idiot. Of course she wouldn’t like him like this. He looks like her brother, like someone who has no business putting babes in her belly, when yesterday he looked like a wildling, a stranger, a man she could fuck and forget. That’s why she was flirting and touching and practically sitting in his lap. He was familiar enough to feel safe, but no so familiar she couldn’t pretend he was someone else entirely.

Disappointment lodges itself in his throat; he washes it down with a mouthful of wine.

Maybe it’ll be easier next time.

Next time.

 _Seven hells._ How many times will they have to do this?

“Usually…” He clears his throat, drinks more wine. “Usually, it takes more than once.”

“Perhaps you can visit. A few times per month?”

Visit. To _fuck_ her. Sweat forms at his temples, the nape of his neck, the small of his back. He tugs at the laces of the doublet, opening it at the collar. This was a terrible idea. Tempting and seductive in the abstract, aye, like something out of the dreams that come to him when he’s too tired to control his thoughts. But in reality… No matter how prettily she plates the offer on a bed of lace and ruffles, reaching out to take it seems impossible.

He can’t do this. Not like this.

“And what if nothing happens?” he says. “I don’t even know whether… I died. I probably can’t.”

“Do you spill when you peak?”

Jon presses his lips together, nodding. 

“Does it look different? Does _anything_ seem different?”

“Not that I've noticed.”

“Well then. And I can. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

Slowly, he turns his head to look at her. “How do you… Have you?”

Sansa runs her thumb over the smooth wood of the simple wine cup. “Once. With Drustan. I took moontea.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons. Never even told him. Only Maester Wolkan knows. And you.”

She drinks, licks her lips, and puts the cup back down on the chest.

“You regret it.”

“We talked about it sometimes, him and me. He was always so optimistic. Said it would be a blessing. That if something happened, we'd figure it out. But when Maester Wolkan told me I was pregnant, I just knew. It wasn’t right. It wouldn’t work. It would complicate everything. And now… He has a daughter. Twin boys. Had my child lived, he would’ve had siblings. Half siblings.” She shakes her head. “I don’t want that.”

“Me neither.”

“Then that means…”

Yes. Then that means. For the rest of their lives. These are their vows, then. Their wedding night.

His hand holding the cup trembles. He clasps his other hand around it and rests the foot of the cup against his thigh to hide it.

“Jon,” she says, turning toward him, “why are you doing this? If you’re just doing this because you feel you owe me… I wouldn’t want that.”

He can only meet her eyes for a moment before looking away lest she sees the truth in his.

Ever since Robb laughed at him and told him he was just a bastard who never could become lord of Winterfell, Jon has kept his dreams to himself. At least until Tormund poured so much ale into him the walls he’d built over the years eroded and everything came rushing out. Not that he remembers more than fragments of that night, but it’s more than enough to know it was mortifying. 

Once everything had settled, he just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whatever he did to distract himself, the thoughts just kept coming back. Sansa and her betrothal to Joffrey. How different things would’ve been had Jon’s mother and Rhaegar not died, had he grown up Prince Aegon, heir to the Iron Throne...

His palms are damp. He might be a dragon for true this time, but he can’t pretend to growl and snarl. He can’t let her sing him to sleep so he can hide from the game they’re playing. Either he leaves now or he participates. Either he talks or he leaves.

He should leave. He should. He doesn’t want it like this--and yet Jon wipes his palms on his breeches, takes another sip of wine, and tells her as much of the truth as he dares.

“When I was a boy, all I wanted was to grow up to be like Fa-- Like Eddard Stark. I wanted to be Lord of Winterfell. I wanted lots of children, for them to grow up right here and play in the godswood and the crypts and learn how to fight and ride in the courtyard. I wanted them to be Starks. Like his children. I wanted to raise a son, an heir, and teach him how to be a man like he taught Robb. And,” Jon says, lips curved in a lopsided smile, “I wanted a lady wife just like his.”

“I thought you hated my mother.”

“No.” He looks at her sadly. “She hated me. But she _loved_ you. You and Robb and Arya and Bran and Rickon. She loved you in a way no one had ever loved me. Has ever loved me. She would’ve done _anything_ for you--and I wanted that for my children. What I never had. And I still do. Someone fierce like her. Who’ll protect her family tooth and nail." He stares down into the half-empty cup of wine in his hands. "Someone like you.”

She’s unmoving; he can’t even hear her breathing. Perhaps she’s finding all the things unsaid in the pauses between the words. Panic creeps up his spine, urges him to fill the silence.

“I’m not doing this because I feel guilty. I’ve always wanted to be a father. Always. I just never thought I could be. But if I can, I want my children to be Starks and I want them to grow up in Winterfell and to be loved the way your mother loved you. I can’t think of anything better to give them.”

“And one day,” Sansa says, slowly, “your firstborn child will be king or queen in the North.”

Jon’s eyes fill with tears he blinks away. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“Oh, I cared,” he whispers in a voice too unsteady to carry. “That was the greatest honor of my life. But I knew it couldn’t last.”

“So you didn’t allow yourself to get attached.”

“No.” He clears his throat and drains the cup of the last of the wine and puts it on the floor to rid himself of the temptation of refilling it. “But I cared. So much. Never think I didn’t.”

She touches his shoulder, strokes him across the width of his back until she cups the ball of his other shoulder and pulls him into an awkward hug over the cup and flagon between them. She smells like lavender and roses. He buries his face in her hair and allows himself to take comfort from the way her hand strokes his back, from the way her chest rises and falls, from the way she demands absolutely nothing. Only gives.

He could sit all night like this, just soaking up what she offers, but they’re not here to snuggle, and with great effort he pulls away.

“The crown was too heavy for me anyway,” he says, blinking softly at her. “You wear it more gracefully.”

Her eyes move over his face, drop to his lips. She licks hers and she’s close, so close. All he needs to do is angle his head and lean in just a touch and his stomach swoops and he will kiss Sansa. He’ll finally kiss her and kiss her until he no longer remembers the taste of servitude and cowardice and death. He’ll remember why he once could kiss for hours and hours and enjoy every moment of it, every slide of lips and tongue, every give and every take.

Her eyelashes flutter; his eyes drift closed--

A flower-scented draft wafts over him. The lid of the chest creaks. The cup at his feet is knocked over and hits the floor with a clunk. 

Jon opens his eyes. In front of the hearth stands Sansa wringing her hands, eyes downcast.

“I have scars,” she says. “A lot of them. They might be disturbing. Hard to ignore.”

Jon frowns. “Your prince tell you that?”

She shakes her head. “Handmaidens. Some cried when they saw me. One vomited. Another couldn’t bring herself to touch me. It took me almost a year to find Kari and Ella. They’re sisters. Kari’s husband was not a nice man. She has scars of her own. They got rid of him. His brother dragged them in front of me for justice. For punishment. I took them into my employ.” 

Biting her lip, she moves her hands down to the belt at her waist. Then she takes a deep breath, loosens the knot, and lets the robe drop to the floor. Jon forgets how to breathe. Lace and ruffles and fabric so sheer he can see the pink of her nipples, the curves of her breasts, the darker triangle leading to her sex. The blood in his body rushes south. He crosses one leg over the other and averts his eyes.

“Oh.” Sansa lets out a joyless chuckle. “That bad?” 

Through the corner of his eye, he sees her bend down to pick up the robe. Jon’s on the floor instantly, stopping her by touching her arm.

“It's not bad. You're… I’ve never--” He swallows and releases her arm, gesturing awkwardly with one hand. “I’ve never seen a woman dressed like this. That’s all.”

“Never?”

He shakes his head, staring up at the ceiling for he should not see her this way. He’s not allowed. The very essence of him knows it. 

“You like it?”

“Yeah, you’re… Yeah."

“Then look at me. I wore it for you.”

He nods repeatedly, chest moving too quickly with bursts of breaths. Then he inhales deeply and returns his gaze to her, holding hers for a beat while preparing himself. Her eyes flit between his and he can’t read her at all. She’s just watching him sweat and blush while she remains unaffected despite what she said this morning about his effect on women.

Or she’s just good at hiding it. Keeping eye contact, he loosens the rest of his laces and shrugs off his doublet. Sansa’s gaze drops and so does her jaw, tongue darting out to wet her lips, and a thrill shoots through him. _You like it_? is at the tip of his tongue, but he keeps those words to himself and takes her permission to admire her while she admires him.

Beneath the translucent smallclothes, scars slither across her skin, covering most of her stomach, thighs, and quite a bit of her arms, and it should make him angry--it should make him _furious_ \--but she dressed up for him. For _him_. In something so exquisite, so enticing and he’s never seen anyone more beautiful. Everything else just fades away. He sees only Sansa.

“Would you like to undress me?”

His _yeah_ is so quick and eager his face prickles with heat. But if she noticed, she doesn’t let on. In one graceful movement, she moves the copper locks tumbling over her shoulder to fall down her back, and cranes her neck. There’s a bow there. Beneath her collarbone. A delicate thing. Will everything unravel if he tugs at it? He reaches out with an unsteady hand. He hasn’t even kissed her yet. Maybe she doesn’t want him to. They’re here to make a baby not love.

He pulls at the bow. A swath of fabric falls to reveal her naked breast. Her nipple is taut. Jon licks his lips, heart hammering in his chest, as he lets his fingers ghost over the peak. Gooseflesh spreads across her skin; heat simmers in his veins. Sansa tosses the hair on her other side over her shoulder, revealing a second bow. He undoes that too, and grabs her waist with one greedy hand and pulls her closer. The heels of her silk slippers click against the flagstones. The ruffles on the short legs of her smallclothes brush against his crotch. Instinctively, he bucks against her.

“Well,” she says, “glad to see Tormund was wrong.”

Jon recoils as if her words slapped him. She moves after him, whispering that she’s sorry, that she’s relieved, that he _should_ be hard. And he lets her come close, lets her unlace his breeches and tug them down his thighs and he still hasn’t kissed her. Doesn’t she want him to kiss her? That’s the first step, should be the first step, and his hand cups her cheek and he’s hard against her and her nipples brush against his chest and he leans in.

She turns her head, his lips meeting the sharp angle of her jawline.

Leaning his forehead against her cheekbone, Jon eases out a breath. “I don’t know how to do this unless I can kiss you,” he murmurs. “I’ve never done this without kissing.”

“I don’t want to.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “We’ll just undress, lie down, and... We don’t need to kiss to make a baby.”

Jon sighs, his whole body softening with that exhale, but then her hand is there, cupping him through his smallclothes, making him hard again, and he stops her with a groan, with his fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“Don’t. It’s been too long.”

“Are you afraid you won’t--”

“Yeah.”

“It’s all right, you know. If you’re quick. As long as you spill inside--”

“Yeah.”

Turned away from her, he removes his smallclothes, lifts the furs draped over the bed, and lies down with his eyes closed. He listens to the rustle of her smallclothes falling to the floor, to the steps of her bare feet taking her to the other side of the bed, and waits for cool air to sneak under the furs when she lifts them, for the featherbed to shift when she lies down.

Nothing happens.

Jon opens his eyes. As naked as on her nameday, she stares down at the bed with one arm shielding her breasts.

“Did you ever. With her. In this bed.”

“No. Never at Winterfell. Only on the ship sailing here.”

Sansa exhales and it sounds like relief, but it doesn’t mean anything. She wasn’t _jealous._ She doesn’t even want to kiss him and when she joins him in bed, she keeps a hand’s breadth between them. Whatever glimpse of desire he saw in her earlier is gone.

“I prefer being on top,” she says in the tone of someone discussing food preferences.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Oh. Well, it’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I meant: I like it when _you’re_ on top. Er”--he scrunches up his face--”when the woman is.”

A quick, unconvincing smile. “Compatible. A good start. Lie back?”

Jon rolls over on his back. He’s softened again and wraps a hand around himself instinctively, but then shame hits him like a wave of fire and he lays his hand down flat by his side. He can’t do that in front of her. 

Sansa moves the furs aside and straddles his thighs. Is she just going to… This really is just a business arrangement, isn’t it? She’ll take him inside her, ride him to completion, and leave the room, sticky and unsatisfied and hopefully pregnant so she’ll never have to go through this again.

Tormund said she _wanted_ him. But she’d had wine, then--lots of it--while tonight he can't remember her taking more than one or two sips. And Jon looked like someone else.

Her fingers close around him and starts pumping steadily, firmly, like a chore to get done; he grows hard despite himself, despite a voice whispering in the back of his mind that maybe it would’ve been better had he just left.

Sansa lines him up. Jon holds his breath. She expels hers.

“I can’t,” she whispers, sitting back on his thighs.

Jon props himself up on his elbows to look at her. “Maybe we should stop.”

“No. It’s just…” She crosses her arms over her breasts. “I felt too exposed. You on top?”

“Yeah.”

She leans over the length of the bed and takes her wine cup from the bench and swallows it all down in greedy gulps, a stream of red trickling from the corner of her mouth down her chin.

In his dreams he would’ve licked that wine off her skin before capturing her lips in a passionate kiss. Now it just makes him feel uneasy. And he still feels uneasy when she lies down and motions at him to come. And when her breasts jiggle when he positions himself above her, hands planted on either side of her arms, he’s not filled with the instinct to kiss them. Even though they’re gorgeous. Even though all of her is gorgeous.

He should, though. Kiss them. He should kiss her _everywhere_ , make her quiver with want and need.

“Can I make it good for you?”

“You don’t need to,” she says, eyes locked on the ceiling.

“But can I?”

Her eyes flit around the room as if following a trapped bird trying to find its way back to freedom. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

Jon heaves a sigh. “If this is not good for you, it’s not going to be good for me. And if this is not good for me, you’re not getting your fucking seed.” He closes his eyes with a groan. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. This is a very strange situation."

He moves off her and sits up in bed, knees tucked to his chest, his penis soft between his legs. “You don’t want to do this, Sansa.” 

“I do.”

“You really don’t. You just downed a whole cup of wine in one go, for fuck’s sake.”

She sits up too, pulling up the furs to cover her chest. “On my wedding night with Tyrion, he told me to drink wine. It would make it easier. And I did. I drank. Because I was terrified and it made me feel less terrified. But I’m not terrified with you. I’m just… I don’t know how to do this with you. It’s difficult and I’m _nervous_. I thought it would help. The wine. Calm my nerves a bit.”

“It shouldn’t be this difficult. If I repulse--”

“You don’t! You _are_ handsome. You really are."

“You don’t even want me to touch you.”

“I didn’t with Drustan either. Not at first. It took time. Can you give me time?”

Jon turns to her so he can look her in the eye. “Do you _really_ want this? With me.”

“I chose you."

“All right. I’ll give you all the time you need.”

“You were gone for so long, Jon,” she murmurs. “I think I just need to get used to you. To feel safe with you again. To _know_ you again.” She lies down on her side, tucking her arm under the pillow. “Tell me about your life.”

Lying down too, he mirrors her pose. “There’s really nothing to tell.”

“Why do you keep saying that? Something must’ve happened. You build cabins. Tell me about that.”

“There was a builder. Almer. His whole village helped fighting in the war against the Night King. When it was all over, he was one of only a few left. He came to Castle Black to help with repairs. He taught me so much. Then, after I left Castle Black, we built a cabin together and once we were done, I just kept building.”

“Why didn’t you settle down?”

“I enjoy building.”

“Why?”

Jon shrugs. “Just do.”

She feigns a scowl; he smiles softly at her.

“And your horse?” she says. “I’ve never seen a breed like that before.”

“She’s of the North. The _true_ North.”

He fires off a grin and then he tells her about the wild horses that roam the valleys and climb the mountains of the true North. Horses with thick coats and sturdy bodies he used to watch from a distance when he took breaks from building. Most of them were either dun or dappled, but one mare had a soot-black foal and he felt a kinship with it. Silly, perhaps, but like him and Ghost that little foal was different. She didn’t quite fit in. Then, one day, when he and Ghost hunted together in the woods stretching out at the foot of the valley, they interrupted a bear attacking that same mare. They’d gotten separated from the herd, she and her foal, and now the mare protected her child with hooves and teeth. Ghost shot between them like an arrow, scaring off the bear. But it was too late. Only moments later, the mare passed away from her injuries and the foal was alone. Alone and with a gash across her flank.

“It was shallow, thankfully. So I healed her. Fed her. Raised her. She’s been with me ever since.”

“So you’re already a father,” Sansa murmurs, eyelids heavy.

Jon smiles crookedly. “Suppose.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Aye, she is.”

“I’m glad you have her,” Sansa mumbles, blinking so very slowly. “Now that Ghost is…”

Her eyes fall shut completely, her breathing calm and steady. Jon whispers her name and she hums, and when he whispers, “Are you asleep?” she hums at that too. Her lips are softly parted and her lashes cast inky shadows on her pale cheeks and he should’ve made himself stop loving her years ago. He should’ve made himself stop the instant he realized.

“We shouldn’t do this, Sansa, should we?”

Her eyes flutter open before closing again. Then she whispers back three breathy, sleepy words: “No, probably not.”

A truth she gives now that she’s too tired to lie to herself and to him. They shouldn’t do this and they won’t. He knows with all he is they’ll never move further than this. Tomorrow when she wakes, when the stubbornness has worn off, she’ll drop that _probably_ and know it too. Tormund pushed her, that’s all. He and his boy reminded her of things she wanted and Jon was there, looking like someone else, and wanting a lady--and she knew he’d always wanted to be a Stark. Ever since she gave him that cloak. She probably knew about all his secret dreams too. Had pieced it all together because she _is_ clever. A lot more clever than he is. She always was.

One quiet night in a brazier-warmed tent somewhere between Castle Black and Winterfell, she told him about Littlefinger and the things he’d taught her. “If you figure out what someone wants,” she said, “you’ll know how to move them.” That’s what she learned and that’s what she did. She figured out what Jon wanted and moved him straight into bed to get what she wanted. And he let her. Against his better judgment, he let her. 

But they shouldn’t and they won’t and he moves to leave the bed, to leave her a note, to leave Longclaw by the bed, to leave Winterfell. But in her sleep, Sansa moves after him and, with the most adorable grunt he’s heard in his life, wraps an arm around his waist. When he tries to extract himself, she only holds on tighter and he’s not a good man. He’s not. A good man would’ve risked waking her and left, but he’s selfish and needy and relaxes in her arms and lets her snuggle closer, for in this very brief moment in time, a moment he’ll never get to experience again, he can pretend this really was their wedding night.

He can pretend she loves him too.

* * *

* * *

Sansa’s body is thrumming with need. A delicious ache pulsates between her legs. Her nipple tingles. She opens her eyes a smidge, just enough to see pale morning light peering in through the cracks in the shutters. She’s wrapped in someone's embrace. Someone warm and strong and naked lying behind her. _Jon._ It comes back to her then, the failed seduction, the wine, the murmur of his voice lulling her to sleep. But now she’s half-awake and his hand is on her breast, nipple caught between his fingers, and he’s hard against her. Hard and grinding in a languid pace.

Is he awake?

His beard rasps against her shoulder. Lips brush over her neck. Breath wafts hot and heavy across her skin. It’s _torment_. A taste of what she wants but not _where_ she wants it. If only she shifts, just a little. Tilts her hips, helps him in between her thighs, _oh_ , right there. So close. She bites her lip, holds her breath, angles herself even better. He squeezes her nipple and he’s awake, isn’t he? He must be. He’s playing with her nipple and she moans, pushing back against him. He’s at her entrance. She’s never felt more empty.

 _Just push inside._ _Please._

“Sansa?”

His voice his thick with want, with the grogginess of sleep. He stiffens, freezes, hand still on her breast, cock still nudging her entrance. If he moves away now, she’ll scream. She needs him. Gods, she’s _aching_.

She rocks again. An encouragement. Breath hitching when he slides across her swollen bud.

“Yes?” he whispers into her ear.

_“Yes."_

Then she feels him, pushing inside, slowly, slowly, and she lifts her leg and hooks her foot behind his knee, helping him inside until he’s filling her up. She hums with pleasure; he groans into her neck and they rock together in a lazy, sleepy way that’s so fucking good she’s _floating_. Then he moves his fingers down, down, down and touches her right _there_ and her moan is so loud she should be embarrassed but she’s not. She just keeps rocking, finding the right pace, the right angle where he hits that sweet spot inside. Slow at first, then quicker, harder, while his fingers work and his teeth nip at her shoulder and his lips kiss her spine and she reaches behind her and grabs his hip and pulls him closer. Burrows her fingers into his taut muscles. Urges him on. The sound of them fill the quiet chamber. The bursts of their breaths and grunts. The slaps of flesh meeting flesh. The wet noises of their fucking. She’s so close now. So close. She moves her hand to his, guides his fingers, teaches him the rhythm she likes, and he’s such a good learner. So eager to please. Gets it right away. Touches her just right, perfect rhythm, perfect pressure, while he pounds into her and his name is on her tongue _._

It flows out of her in an airy moan when she comes. She's barely finished riding through her peak when his rhythm stutters and he follows her into the high where she’s soaring. Sweat has pooled between them. He’s hot and damp against her back and she doesn’t care. Another kiss to her neck. A murmured something she can’t hear against her shoulder. _That was good. You good?_ Something good--and it is. _So_ good because it’s Jon’s voice. Jon’s kisses. Jon’s cock softening and slipping out of her. Jon’s hand cupping her stomach. Jon’s fingers she laces with her own below her belly button, as if they’re blessing the life they might’ve just created together.

A slow smile spreads across her face as she settles in, cuddles close, relaxes to fall back asleep. Oh, she could get used to this. His protective arm around her. His soft lips dropping lazy kisses on her back. His hums of contentment echoing her own. He’ll visit her every month now and they’ll fuck and cuddle and fall asleep in each other’s arms and wake up in them too and fuck again and she could get used to this--and she will. Last night they agreed to only be with each other for the rest of their lives, and she’ll fall back in love with him and maybe he’ll fall in love with her too. It’s so easy to fall in love when you--

Sansa’s eyes fly open. Jon’s arm is strapped across her body, pinning her to the featherbed, constricting her lungs worse than the tightest of corsets. Every breath feels shallow, the air too thin to satisfy. Her head spins. She’s trapped. Trapped under him. She needs air. She needs to run. But she’s trapped and all she can do is stare into the faint morning light and see clearly for the first time since she noticed Longclaw at the hip of a wildling and lifted her gaze to look straight into dark eyes she never thought she’d see again. 

Regret hits her, nasty and cold like a gulp of ocean water forcing itself into your lungs.

If falling back in love with Jon is the price she must pay to have a child, then she can’t afford a child.

When he finally rolls over on his back, she slips out of bed. The blood rushes in her veins. She can’t hear anything but the roar of it. Despite only having one cup of wine last night, the world tilts when she bends down to pick up her clothes. She even staggers when she moves across the floor, wrapped only in the robe, the smallclothes and slippers in a bundle pressed to her pounding heart.

Without throwing him a single look, she flees the chamber. Flees this arrangement. She can’t look at him, doesn’t want to know what he looks like naked and asleep in a bed she’s allowed to share.

Tears spring to her eyes, but she forces them away. How could she have been so stupid?

Why does he always make her so _stupid_?


	11. Foolish Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there are some depictions of loss of appetite in this chapter. Just wanted to warn in case that can be triggering. Also, mentions of abortion.

Jon opens his eyes with a deep intake of breath and blinks against the bright light coming in through the cracks in the shutters. He slept well. For the first time since before King’s Landing, he slept a whole night through indoors without nightmares. Despite the hearth and the heavy furs and the warm woman beside him. (Or perhaps thanks to her.)

Smiling, he rolls over on his side to murmur good morning, to pull her closer if she allows it. 

His heart does a little stutter. The spot next to him is empty, and the sheets where she lay are cold. Then he remembers with a relieved sigh: she mentioned a meeting yesterday. She’s a queen now. Unlike him she can’t sleep all morning. Unlike him she has duties. Unlike him she can’t breathe in the lingering scent of lavender and roses on the pillow. He smiles into the soft down-filled fabric, butterflies whirling around in his stomach as if he were a green boy again who’s gotten his first kiss.

She moaned his name when she peaked. At least it sounded like it. Could’ve been an _ooh_ , he supposes, but it really did sound like Jon and it was better than anything.

He takes one last deep breath before he rises. He’ll stay today. And tonight they’ll go to bed together. Perhaps she’ll let him pleasure her again now that this morning went so well. Perhaps she’ll let him kiss her.

After washing, he opens the wardrobe and chooses from his old clothes. Secures the bun at the back of his head. Even detaches the fur from his old cloak and hangs it over his shoulders. He has no looking glass in his room, but when he walks through the hallways to the dining chamber, the servants and guards look at him differently. He’s no longer a wildling they vaguely remember as Jon Snow. He’s himself and as he breaks his fast in front of the wolf-pack tapestry, Winterfell feels like it could be home again. The cabin isn’t that important. He could stay. She said it herself. It’s still his home.

He should stay. 

* * *

He finds her in her office writing in a ledger. Clouds have rolled in over the sky, muting the daylight slanting in through the window and spreading a raw kind of chill. She’s in a dress of softest gray wool with a light cloak draped over her shoulders, protecting her from the cold. He could pull her into his arms and warm her too. He could kiss her neck and lead her back to bed and warm her better still. Queens need breaks, just like everyone else, and the more often they’re intimate...

“Good morning,” she says, laying down the quill, and there’s something in her voice, in her eyes, that puts him on edge. “Have a seat.”

She gestures at the chair standing opposite her desk and something frail and hopeful inside him breaks. He grasps the backrest of the chair but remains on his feet.

Eyes downcast, Sansa folds one hand over the other on the desk and takes a deep breath. “Jon--”

“I thought you were sure,” he says, voice low.

“So did I. But what happened this morning... I don’t want to do it again.”

Her face is pale. Drawn. Controlled. She’s trembling from the effort. Jon’s knees wobble and he sinks down on the chair after all.

“I hurt you,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry. I thought--”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

His eyes flit over her face; she still won’t look at him. “Did I… You were awake, weren’t you? I thought you said yes.”

“I did. You didn’t-- You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t understand. You seemed to enjoy it?”

Her bottom lip trembles. She licks it into her mouth and bites down on it. Then she releases her lip and a shaky breath and looks up at him, her eyes as blank and deterring as the Wall.

“My body did. But _I_ didn’t. I don’t want to do it again. I’m sorry, Jon, that it had to go that far for me to know. I don’t want this with you.”

Her words hit him like a sparring sword over the head, his ears booming, his vision blurring. Vitriol she’s hurled over him ever since he came back echoes in the back of his mind along with lessons she’s shared with him in tents and walkways and quiet chambers. Things she’s learned from Cersei and Littlefinger about weapons between your legs and other means of manipulation. It all melds together, painting an ugly, horrifying picture.

This is her revenge. For what he did. This is his punishment.

Something’s tapping. A dull, rapid thud-thud-thud. Jon looks down at his hand. It’s shaking, his fingers hitting the wood of the armrest. He clenches his hands into fists and lays them on his thighs. He’s a person. He’s a _person_ not a--

“I’m sorry, Jon. I am. But luckily it takes more than once and nothing--”

“You resent me,” he says, the booming still in his ears muffling the sound of his own voice as if it came from somewhere else, somewhere deep inside. “You have for years. So you played a game.” He smiles joylessly at her. “That’s what people like you do. We’re all just cyvasse pieces to you that you can move around however you please. Aye, it takes more than once and thank the gods for that. People like you shouldn’t have children.”

Her eyes widen; her lips stay shut. He rises from the chair and stares down at her, the thunderous beating of his heart making his whole body pulsate. 

“If Arya comes back to Winterfell, tell her I miss her and want to see her. But she’ll have to go beyond the Wall, because I’m not coming back to Winterfell. This is not my home and you? You are not my family. You never were. We’re nothing to each other and I never want to see you again for as long as I draw breath. _Your Grace._ ”

Then he gives a curt bow and leaves her office, leaves her, leaves forever. Every step of the way is right and good and empowering. Tearing off Jon Snow’s suffocating garments, shaking his hair free, and slipping back into Jon the Crow’s wildling skin is a liberation. And thundering up the Kingsroad, down the path, to the mere, and hurling Longclaw into the placid water with a scream that tears at his throat is a release he never knew he needed.

As it lands with a splash and sinks beneath the surface, Jon sinks too onto his knees in the cold, damp grass and watches that sword drown along with the foolish dreams he should’ve abandoned long ago.

He should be grateful to her, really. She finally showed him once and for all what she is. She finally set him free.

* * *

* * *

Sansa stares at the closed door. Her left thumbnail is cutting into her right middle finger, a sharp pain she’s focused on throughout her interaction with Jon to keep herself numb. Now she finally unfolds her hands and stretches out her fingers. They’re trembling like tree crowns stirred by autumn-strong winds. A crescent mark mars the flesh on her finger. She rubs it and rubs it and rubs it until it goes away. Then she picks the quill back up, dips it in ink, and continues writing into the ledger.

(She manages two pages before she breaks down crying.)

* * *

* * *

  
  


He’s halfway to Castle Black when regret punches him in the gut or wherever the bleeding hell his conscience is located. Longclaw did no wrong. Jeor Mormont deserves more than having his gift become forgotten in a shallow pool of water. Jon might never father children--if that awful moment this morning bore fruit, she’ll get rid of it, he has no doubt--but he might find himself a ward one day. Someone he’ll teach how to build cabins and how to protect those in need of protection, who’ll carry Longclaw once he’s old enough to wield it.

Someone he’ll do better by than he did Olly.

With the heaviest sigh the world has ever heard, Jon turns Shadow around and starts making his way back to the mere. Barely a mile later, he sees a wagon on the road, but as Jon steers Shadow to the side to make way for them, the driver holds up his hand in greeting and calls out, “M’lord!”

Warily, Jon trots over to them. The wagon is small, a canvas covering whatever it contains, and two boys no older than fourteen sit at the end of it, one of them damp from head to toe. The driver is middle-aged, though, with short-cropped graying hair, a neat coal-black beard, and plain but clean and well-mended clothes.

“You dropped something, m’lord.” With a friendly smile, the driver holds out Longclaw still in its scabbard with the sword-belt attached. His sleeve rides up from the movement, revealing three dots on the inside of his wrist: one white and, below it, two black. “We were camping by the mere. Saw your… Well.” He chuckles awkwardly. “Reckoned you’d change your mind. Nice sword like this.”

“It _is_ a nice sword.” Jon regards him with narrowed eyes. “Worth a lot of gold. You could’ve kept it. Sold it. Would’ve fed you and yours for years.”

“It’s not mine to sell.” The man gives another friendly smile. “You don’t remember me, do you? I fought for you against the Boltons, and the Night King, and the Lannisters. I was there when the Mad Queen burned down King’s Landing. Oh, don’t worry, m’lord. I take no offense. I was one of thousands. You couldn’t possibly remember us all, could you?”

“I’m sorry.”

The driver shrugs and nods at Longclaw. “You will need that sword one day.”

“I hope you’re wrong.” Jon attaches Longclaw to his saddlebags. “My fighting days are over. Where are you folks heading?”

“Beyond the Wall. Would you like to travel with us for a while, m’lord? There’s safety in numbers and we have more than enough food to share." The driver squints up at the bruised sky. "Unless you’re going back south to wait out the storm?”

Even though he can’t see even the silhouette of Winterfell from here, Jon looks southward. Too wrapped up in his heartache, he forgot to bid one last goodbye to the place where he grew up. He forgot to touch the ground and the stones and the heart-tree and the stone statues in the crypts. He forgot to light candles for the loved ones he’s lost.

Doesn’t matter, though, does it? He said goodbye the other day. His departure was postponed, that’s all.

“I’m not a lord.” Jon looks back at his new traveling companions with a smile. “I never was. I’m just a builder.”

* * *

* * *

Sansa stares out at the black sky. Yesterday it opened up and released a merciless downpour that still hasn’t let up. Maids slide across the muddy courtyard, shrieking and laughing, the buckets dangling from their hands splashing more water on the already soaked ground. 

Jon’s out there. In the storm. All alone. She won’t know whether he makes it home to the river in one piece. At least not until Tormund returns--and he might be gone for months.

“This is a splendid goose, Your Grace.”

Sansa tears her eyes off the window and smiles weakly at Maester Wolkan. “Yes. Delicious.”

He looks at her untouched plate but says nothing.

She goes back to staring out the window.

* * *

* * *

  
For two days, they’re stuck at Castle Black while the sky showers the world around them in one of the worst rainstorms he’s seen in years. Trees topple over. The cellars beneath the castle fill with water. And the courtyard becomes a pig's paradise. And yet one of the boys always guards the wagon. Ronne, the driver, hasn’t said a word about its contents, why they’re leaving the North, or why the boys (who look nothing like him and don’t call him father) are with him, and Jon hasn’t asked. They wouldn’t be the first men running from something and ending up among the Free Folk. They gave him Longclaw when they could’ve kept it. They’ve shared their food freely. They treat the horses and each other well. That’s all he needs to know.

When they separate soon after leaving the Wall, with them moving toward the Antler and him moving to the Iselind, they clasp hands and wish each other well. But he never tells them where to find him if they ever are so inclined. No one but Tormund and a few of his friends really know. And once this cabin is done, Jon will move even farther north, after all. As long as he has Shadow and a sharp dagger, he can make a life anywhere.

* * *

* * *

Maester Wolkan lays a handful of scrolls on Sansa’s desk. Usually, he bows and gives her privacy to read in peace. Today, though, he hovers awkwardly by her desk with his hands tucked into his sleeves, glancing at the plate full of now-cold food forgotten on her desk. The sight of the thick, glistening chicken leg turns her stomach. She reaches for the herb bread instead and forces herself to chew a large chunk and swallow it down with a mouthful of water. Then she forces herself to eat half a carrot too. Appeased, Wolkan bows and takes his leave.

They mind her as if she were a child, Wolkan and Kari and her advisers. Although Sansa prefers to eat in her office, they always make sure she has at least one meal a day with company, and each time she makes herself eat enough to calm their worries even though food tastes like nothing.

Last time she struggled to eat too--and she struggled to fall (and stay) asleep. All she could do well was work and work and work. During the days he occupied her every thought unless she worked hard enough to forget. During the nights she dreamed a little girl’s dreams of love and family with a man who didn’t exist. And every time she woke, with those dreams still lingering at the fringes of her consciousness, she was heartbroken all over again and had to work even harder to forget him.

This time she doesn’t dream of love and family. The decision she made was right. She must look forward, think about the North, about her people, about the work cut out for her. 

She does dream, though. Of Jon. Of his lips caressing her skin, his voice whispering in her ear, his hands dragging up her thighs, his teeth nipping at her flesh, his… _everything_. And each morning she wakes up frustrated. She wakes up with a new kind of longing. A new kind of emptiness.

That’s why food tastes like nothing now. Whenever her emotions are out of balance, her appetite is the first to go. That’s all.

She pushes the plate farther from her and picks up one of the scrolls. Sam’s seal. His neat hand-writing. “I’m happy to announce,” it reads and breathing gets a little difficult, as if her handmaidens pulled the corset too tight. Sansa blinks furiously, staring at the words on the parchment. _Baby girl... Melessa Shireen Tarly… Beautiful...._ _All ten fingers and all ten toes..._ A proud, happy father’s excited words.

She drops the scroll on the desk, chest jumping with too-short breaths. It’s happiness. She’s happy for them. Of course she’s happy for them. A baby girl, just like they wanted. A sweet little Melessa. Sansa wipes at her cheeks and reaches for the next scroll with trembling fingers.

She always cries when she’s happy.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Jon breaks off birch twigs and binds them into a bundle before attaching them to Shadow’s saddlebags where a bundle of fish already hangs. With summer fast approaching, he ends each day soaked in sweat and he should bathe more than ever. He should but he hasn’t. Every time he’s thought of it, of leaving the cabin and finding birch twigs and making the sudsy water and washing himself, a strange fatigue has come over him and he’s ended up doing nothing but staring into the river rushing past until he’s found enough energy to go back to work. Not until today when he decided to visit Ghost and saw some birches on the way back and it no longer seemed like much of an effort to gather what he needed.

Not that anyone cares. Tormund’s yet to return from the south--and probably won’t for another month or two--and Shadow doesn’t mind how Jon smells. So he’s just worked and slept and worked and slept. 

And thought of _her_.

He shouldn’t. But he has. Because of the dreams.

He dreams that he returns to Winterfell after all and finds her big-bellied and smiling, welcoming him home with open arms. He dreams that she takes him into her bed and gives him her heart (and her hand too beneath the heart-tree). He dreams that when their baby is born they make another and another and another until Winterfell is full of joy and laughter. And every morning he’s ready to mount Shadow and gallop home before he remembers.

She held a grudge for five fucking years. She laid a trap. And he stepped right into it like the bleeding idiot he is.

All right, sometimes he thinks he was too harsh, too ungenerous, too unfair. That she got scared or uncomfortable considering their past and he overreacted. But that’s his foolish heart speaking. If he lets his mind speak, however…

Not that he should. He needs to learn how to ignore both heart and mind and focus only on the now. On the rush of the river to the west. The brisk chill of the winds to the north. The warmth of the sun to the east. And the sound of voices coming from the south. From the godswood.

Jon stops to listen. People come there sometimes to pray, to marry, to scatter the ashes of their loved ones. It’s rare, though. Rare enough that Jon sneaks closer with Shadow’s reins in his hand.

By the heart-tree, a mighty weirwood with a weeping face, stands one of the boys watching Ronne cut a tender branch off the tree. The other boy stands by the horse and wagon still covered by that canvas.

“What are you doing?”

“Jon!” A smile spreads across Ronne’s face. “What a lovely surprise.”

“That tree is sacred.”

“Oh, don’t worry. The old gods won’t mind.”

“What are you doing?”

Ronne hands the branch to one of the boys, who tucks it under the canvas. Then he strokes his hand down the pale trunk and gives it a pat.

“I study plants. That’s why we came north.” He moves closer, nodding at the bundle of fish. “That’s a lot of fish. You mind sharing? We’ve yet to break our fast today.”

Jon shakes his head and leads them back to the Iselind, where he stokes the glowing embers to grill the fish and puts burl cups of ale on the makeshift table. They eat mostly in silence, as was their way during the few days they traveled together. Something he welcomed after all the forced conversations at Winterfell. Now, though, tension simmers beneath the silence.

He doesn’t believe for one moment that Ronne studies plants.

“We’re heading up the mountain now.” Ronne picks a bone from his tongue and flicks it onto the grass. “You ever been?”

“No one ever goes up there. It’s too cold and uninhabitable.”

“How would you know if no one’s ever been up there?” Ronne smiles again. He’s quick to smile. “The world has changed. It’s not as cold here as it used to be. And I might find some interesting new plants.”

“You should’ve told me you’re an explorer. It would’ve been easier to buy.”

Ronne laughs. “Mayhaps. Would you like to join us? We can’t use the wagon where we’re going. But we could use another pair of hands.”

Shadowing his eyes with his hand, Jon turns to the Iron Mountains. No one knows what lies beyond and the last time a Stark decided to explore, they found only horror. But he’s not a Stark. And if he goes up that mountain, no one will be able to find him. Not even Tormund.

It would be nice to be unfindable for a while. To leave his useless dreams at the Iselind and forget Sansa once and for all.

And whatever Ronne is up to, Jon would like to know as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be the first time he walks into potential danger with no better plan than lying low, fitting in, and thinking on his feet.

“What do you say, Jon the Builder?”

“Yeah.” Jon curves his lips into a wide smile. “Why not?”

* * *

* * *

She’s postponed it for days, but this morning Sansa finally woke up with her tummy rumbling and her appetite back. Everything on the breakfast table looked delicious and she ate until the corset protested. Now she’s back in the dining chamber and licking her lips at a display of eight tiny dishes spreading their mouthwatering scent.

Her fork moves without pause. Once one tiny portion is in her belly, she moves onto the next with a gusto that would’ve left her mother aghast. But Sansa can’t help herself. It’s all _so good_. Hunger really is the best spice; after weeks of picking at her food, she’s _ravenous_.

“Yes?” The cook looks expectantly at her. “Which dish does Your Grace prefer?”

“Oh.”

She presses her lips together, staring down at the empty plates. Even though she knows each dish tasted so divine she scraped the plates clean in a most unbecoming way, she can’t for the life of her remember which she liked the best. (She can barely even remember what she ate.)

“This one,” she says, picking plates at random, “and this one.”

“The swan and the suckling pig, Your Grace?” 

“Yes. Perfect.”

She smiles at the cook. Smiling is easy today. Not only did she wake up ravenous, but for the second morning in a row she also woke up without having dreamed of Jon. Everything seems a bit lighter. Work is easier. Smiling is easier. Eating is the easiest thing in the world. She even properly beams when the baker puts six desserts in front of her, and she has to force herself to focus this time, to eat like a lady and only taste a forkful from each plate.

“The strawberry pastries,” she says, dabbing the corner of her mouth delicately, “and the spiced honey biscuits.”

“Very well, Your Grace. We have our menu.”

Sansa leans back in her chair with a satisfied exhale, the corset pressing into her a fair bit, and sips her water while the maids clear the room. Now everything is decided for her nameday celebration. One less thing to worry about. She smiles to herself and closes her eyes. This is a moment she should take her time and appreciate fully: the first day of life returning to normal, of Jon’s ghost finally being exorcised from her life forever.

Her good mood stays all day. So does her appetite (she even snacks on nuts and raisins while doing her last paperwork before heading to her bedchamber). But when night comes, so do the dreams. Dreams so vivid she wakes up gasping in the middle of the night and has to pleasure herself before she can fall back asleep. Dreams that return at dawn and wake her anew, forcing her to take care of things before sleep takes her again. That’s why Kari has such trouble getting her out of bed the following morning. It’s why Kari has to throw the shutters open, pull the furs off the bed, and talk loudly and brightly for Sansa to finally force her eyes open.

She’s tired. Because she works hard. Because she stays up late. Because her dreams haunt her. That’s all. That’s why she’s tired the next morning too and the next and the next. It’s why she yawns and yawns when Kari dresses her, and why her eyes droop when Kari brushes her hair.

“Your Grace.” Kari puts down the brush on the vanity and moves a footstool next to the padded bench where she sits down. “You haven’t bled in weeks.”

Sansa swallows, staring into the looking glass. “I was never regular. You know that.”

“True, but you’re also eating like I’ve never seen you eat. And you’re always tired.”

“I have a lot of work. We’re building a proper port at Eastwatch and there’s the feast and…” Counting on her fingers, she lists all the projects she’s overseeing. “And that’s not even taking petitions into account.”

“Your Grace,” Kari says, so very gently, “shall I send for the Maester?”

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

Kari sighs discreetly and keeps brushing Sansa’s hair. For days she refrains from saying another word about it even though nothing really changes. Sansa is still tired, still hungry, can’t stop thinking about all the spicy food she’s had whenever she’s visited Dorne, even sends Drustan ravens where she begs him for recipes and has the kitchen prepare dishes with mustard and dragon peppers. But that’s only because he’ll come to her nameday feast and she knows he’ll bring her lots of gifts, like lemons, and snake meat, and spices. That’s why she can’t stop thinking about Dornish food. And, yes, she’s still more tired than usual, but she wakes up in the middle of the night every night now to take care of her needs and relieve herself after too. Small wonder she’s tired. 

“Your Grace,” Kari says one sunny morning right at the cusp of summer. “It’s been over two months. Two months without bleeding.”

Sansa sticks her feet into her silk slippers. “I’m irregular.”

“Your breasts are bigger.”

“I’ve gained a little weight.”

“And they’re sore. I dress you, you know. I notice those things.”

“If they’re sore it’s because my moonblood is coming. Any day now.”

“You have cravings.”

Sansa tilts up her chin. “I haven’t thrown up once. Not once.”

“Not everyone does.” Kari takes her hand, stroking it kindly. “Your Grace, I think it’s time we visit the Maester.”

Sansa feels her chin quivering, eyes prickling with tears. But she’s run out of excuses and she lets Kari lead her through the Keep to the maester’s chambers. There Kari leaves her to be examined alone and for Maester Wolkan to do his strange tests where he sees how alcohol reacts to her urine. Not that he needs to. She already knows. She’s lied to herself for weeks. And once Wolkan gives her the news that really isn’t, he only needs to take one look at her before asking whether he shall prepare moontea.

Sansa closes her eyes, shoulder slumping with her long, tired sigh. “Yes.”

She listens to him pull out drawers, open jars, boil water, throw in the mix of herbs, strain it, and stir in a dollop of honey, the spoon clinking against the clay cup. Then he adds a dash of cold water too so that the temperature is perfect once the cup is in her hands. Pleasantly warm. He’s always so considerate that way, no matter what he gives her. The hot is tempered; the bitter is sweetened. Sansa sniffles. Blows on the liquid anyway. Sniffles again. Her lashes flutter and flutter. A tear spills from them, then another, and another. She blows on the moontea one more time, her breath shuddering. Despite the honey the tea smells awful. Even worse than last time. She puts her bottom lip against the rim of the cup. It trembles, just like her breathing. And the tears keep streaming down her face. She keeps sniffling.

She has to do this. He doesn’t ever want to see her again. He wouldn’t want this anymore. She can’t tie him to herself forever against his will.

_Just drink it._

He’ll never know. She can carry this pain alone. 

_Drink._

Her hands tremble so much that tea spills over the rim and slides down her wrists, under her sleeves, along her forearms. Nothing passes her lips.

Dry hands close around her own. “My Queen,” Wolkan says, softly, “are you sure?”

“No,” she whimpers out. "I don't know."

Then the cup is gone and she cries into her hands in a loud, sobbing way she hasn't cried since she was a little girl who didn’t know a single thing about real pain. Furs are draped around her shoulders. She’s led to a cot where she kicks off her slippers and tucks her legs under her. A cup is placed in her hands. Pleasantly warm. Her stomach lurches and she shies away from the steam rising from the warm drink.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Chamomile tea. To calm your nerves. I poured out the moontea.”

Just to make sure, she smells the tea, breathes in deeply of that chamomile scent, before sipping and sipping until the cup is empty. Then Wolkan encourages her to lie down and rest for a spell. Tells her he’ll inform her advisers she’s indisposed. That they’ll take care of her duties for the day. He even tucks her in and strokes her cheek like Maester Luwin used to do when she was sick as a child before closing the door quietly behind him.

Located on the side of the castle overlooking the fields outside, the maester’s chamber is blissfully sheltered from the noises of the courtyard. She hears only the purring of his cat hidden somewhere among his many shelves, the faint chatter of the ravens in the rookery above them, and something that smells like an autumn forest brewing in a kettle hanging over the hearth. Sansa burrows deeper under the furs and lets the homey sounds lull her into relaxing. The past month or so, she’s avoided touching her stomach, avoided looking at her body in the mirror, avoided anything where she would be forced to acknowledge what she knew in her heart. Now, though, she lays her hands below her belly button, one resting above the other, and pretends it’s _his_ hand lying beneath hers. That it’s his hand cradling the life which has taken root in her belly. That it’s his hand protecting it. And when she drifts off into a chamomile-induced sleep, she finds him in her dreams, pulls him into her arms, and tells him to come home.


	12. Found Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: still talk about moontea, but they’re absolutely keeping the baby, as you will find out in this chapter. Spoiler alert i guess lol

Meera prefers her own legs over a horse’s and always shows up either on foot or on the back of the wagon of a traveler she met on the way--and never on time. Not even for Sansa’s coronation.

Familiar faces filled the Great Hall that day. _Familiar_ , that’s all. Faces belonging to people who shared her home the weeks before the battle for the dawn and the weeks following. Faces belonging to her people, not her friends or family. Sansa was alone. Ever surrounded by people, yes, yet so terribly alone. Again. As her people cheered for her, she forced her mouth into a shadow of a smile, refusing to let tears fall until she could flee to the godswood.

Even now, so many years later, she remembers the cold weight of the crown on her brow. Of the two direwolves protecting one another. Two. She remembers how it sapped her strength when it should’ve bolstered it.

She was still foolish enough to hope back then, was foolish enough to write with fingers trembling from excitement an invitation left ignored. Foolish enough to think he would be happy for her. Proud. And she would pardon him. That would be her surprise, her gift, once they got a moment alone together. A gift given in person. But he never came (and the pardon wasn’t written until months later--four years ago now almost to the day--when they had to dismantle the Night’s Watch and it was less of a gift and more of a necessity).

And so, cradled by the heart-tree’s roots and leaning against its cool trunk, she cried for Jon and Arya and Bran. She cried for Lady. She cried for everyone she’d lost, for everyone who’d abandoned her along the way.

That’s when Meera showed. To swear her allegiance to the new queen. But when Sansa looked up at the woman who saved her little brother, who protected him, who pulled him across vast snowy fields and hunted rabbits for him to eat, who was his friend before she dragged herself out of Winterfell with hollow eyes and tear-stained cheeks, leaving behind the echo of a boy who offered no explanations, Sansa saw herself.

“Can it wait?” she asked then. “The oath. The ceremony. The protocol. Can we just sit?”

At first neither found a way to break the silence, but then Sansa invited Meera to stay for a few days since she’d come all that way, and over the course of those days, little by little, they shared some of their stories, worries, and aches. And Sansa found a friend. 

A friend who’s now riding into the courtyard on an actual horse a whole day before she’s expected, a four month old baby sleeping in a sling tied around her torso, and an older woman with short curls, a friendly face, and sensible breeches riding next to her.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Sansa says, smiling wide.

“Me neither.” Meera dismounts the horse and hands the reins to Oskar. “But now that Wylis is here, I thought it was for the best. Ugh, my bum is killing me."

Sansa peers into the sling. Sleeping upright, the little boy is tucked close to his mother’s chest, his round little cheek flushed a warm pink. Featherlight, she runs her fingers over the soft dark hair covering his head. Her eyes prickle with tears she blinks away.

“He’s beautiful,” she whispers and Meera beams. “Just perfect.”

Even though Sansa is busier than usual for the feast tomorrow, she dedicates an hour to sharing a meal with and listening to Meera gushing about her son. He can already roll over on his back and hold the toys his mother has whittled for him. He gurgles and smiles and sometimes sleeps whole nights. He loves when his grandfather sings and his father plays the reed flute, but hates when Meera whistles.

“It always makes him cry,” Meera says, laughing. “And he loves bathing.” She tickles Wylis’ belly. “My little frog.”

They barely see each other again before the feast. Meera always uses the same guest chamber in the Keep and, even though she doesn’t visit as often as they both would like, she always stays for a week when she does. By now she knows the servants and the guards, the castle and the grounds, and walks around freely. Winterfell is her home away from home. And when it’s time for the feast, she leaves her boy with the older woman and joins Sansa in her bedchamber where they chat even more about Wylis while getting ready before heading to the Great Hall together.

Still, Sansa can’t tell her about her condition and she keeps her questions to herself. Something that grows increasingly difficult as the night progresses. Once more the Great Hall is filled with familiar faces rather than family, but unlike last time there are at least two friends in the crowd. Two friends who both have babies.

While Sansa wouldn’t call Meera or Drustan close, they’ve met at feasts and celebrations. Meera even accompanied Sansa to Dorne once where she and Drustan bickered about who was the best archer until they dragged out targets, bows, and arrows and had a competition right there in the Water Gardens. As the winner, Meera hasn’t failed to remind him of this even once whenever they meet (which he accepts good-naturedly).

Tonight, though, as they catch up, the conversation quite naturally revolves around babies. Sansa listens quietly to every bit of advice they trade, advice that stirs up old memories of all the things her mother instilled in her when Sansa was a young girl and helped in taking care of her baby brothers. She even catches herself touching her stomach once or twice before discreetly moving her hand away.

It’s foolish. She still doesn’t know whether she’ll ever know this baby as anything but the faintest stirring low in her belly that might only be her imagination. Hasn’t prepared in any way, neither knitted nor sewn anything. No one even knows besides Wolkan, Kari, and Ella. But she can’t help but soak it all up, every adorable anecdote about Wylis, and Drustan’s twins and how their big sister is reacting to it all. The evening is a sweet torture where Sansa constantly has to bite her tongue, hold back tears, and force on a mask that no longer fits on her stupid pregnant face.

She leaves the moment she can. Once she’s danced with all the lords, spoken to all the guests, received all her gifts, smiled and laughed and eaten--once she knows she won’t be missed--she slips away. Her tired feet take her to Meera’s door. She’s just about to raise her hand to knock when she hears footfalls coming down the hallway. Drustan’s red brocade robes sweep the flagstones as he walks with easy steps.

“Girls’ night or am I allowed?”

With a smile, Sansa nods at him to join her and they find Meera by the fire, chatting with her maid while Wylis sleeps in his mother's arms. As they step inside, however, the woman bows and takes her leave to give them privacy. Sansa slips out of her shoes and sits down on the now available chair; Drustan finds a footstool and settles down next to her, patting his lap so she can rest her feet there. She declines with a soft shake of her head. 

“You didn’t mind, did you?” Meera says. “That I left early. My breasts were about to explode.”

“Not at all. If I had such a beautiful boy waiting for me, I’d leave too.”

“He really is beautiful, isn’t he?” Meera smiles down at her son. “He looked just like his father when he was born, but the older he gets the more he looks like Jojen.”

“Are you having more?” Drustan asks.

“Oh, yes. I want a whole brood.” Meera’s big brown eyes sparkle. “But I’m in no rush. I want to enjoy my little frog before I add to our family.”

“Same father?”

“We’ll see how this one turns out first.”

Meera grins at her own joke, but that grin quickly turns into a scowl when Drustan looks at Sansa and asks her unceremoniously whether she’s with child. 

Sansa's mouth drops open; she closes it again. "What makes you ask?"

“We saw you touching your stomach. Your face is fuller. The way you listened to our stories… We just knew.”

“And”--Meera bores her eyes into Drustan--”we agreed that we should let her tell us when she was ready.”

“I agreed to nothing. I only listened to your suggestion.” Drustan smiles sweetly at her before softening his expression as he turns back to Sansa. “Who’s the father?”

Sansa licks her lips and folds her hands in her lap. “It’s Jon.”

“Jon _Snow_?” Holding her son close, Meera leans forward in her seat while Drustan only gives a quiet smile. “How did _that_ happen?”

Sansa laughs helplessly. Then she tells them in broad strokes what happened ever since Jon showed up in the courtyard while Drustan sips wine and Meera swaddles her son and tucks him into bed before returning to Sansa and listening to the rest of the story.

“That’s quite a mess,” she says once Sansa is done.

“I know.”

“I don’t blame him for leaving. You didn’t treat him well.”

“No, I didn’t.” Sansa curves her hand protectively around the barely-there swell hidden beneath a tight-laced corset. “I really didn’t think this would happen. The amount of bad luck… I still have time, though. Two weeks, the maester says. After that it becomes… unpleasant.”

Drustan frowns. “You’re not keeping the baby?”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Jon and I…” She shakes her head. “I thought we could do it. That we could do it together. But I was stupid.”

Drustan swirls his wine before taking a sip, watching her thoughtfully over the rim.

“Why don’t you sit down and talk?” Meera says. “That’s what Wylis’ father and I do when we disagree about something. We sit down and talk and listen. Listening is the important bit.”

“Jon and I can’t talk without fighting.”

“Ah.” Drustan stretches out his legs, leaning back a bit and gesturing with his free hand as he talks. “You’re passionate people. Like me and Cora. We fight all the time. We fight, we make up, we make love. Or fuck, depending on the fight. Have you and Jon ever made love after fighting?”

Sansa shakes her head. They’ve never made love at all. Not really.

“Then that’s your problem. Here's what you should do: fight, fuck, talk in the afterglow. That’s where the intimacy happens. _That’s_ the recipe for a healthy relationship.”

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Meera says. “Two adults can and should have sensible conversations about their problems.”

Drustan emits a nonchalant noise. “Maybe you’re not passionate enough.”

“You and I never fought,” Sansa says.

“We were lovers not partners. Had we shared a life, we would’ve fought.”

“My mother and father never argued--”

Drustan laughs over the rest of her words and puts the wine cup on the table, leaning forward with his elbow on his knee. “Oh, your mother and father argued, my sweet Sansa. But perhaps they kept it to their bedchamber so they could fuck after.”

She pulls a face. “Don’t talk about my mother and father that way.”

“You and Jon need to be intimate.” He picks his wine back up. “It’s the only solution.”

“ _That_ I agree with,” Meera says, “but there are many ways to be intimate. Ways _beyond_ the physical.” She shoots Drustan a pointed look. “I don’t think being physically intimate first is the clever way to go about this. Clearly.” She gestures at Sansa’s stomach. “She wouldn’t be in this mess had they talked first.”

“What does it matter? He’s not _here._ ”

Sansa's words came out too petulant for her liking and she looks away, taking measured breaths to calm herself. She’s sent so many ravens (even discreetly asked both Sam and Gendry if Jon came to them). She's sent so many couriers. They’ve found Jon's cabin, always empty. They’ve left scrolls. Scroll upon scroll without her seal, with carefully chosen words, all to ensure the news about her condition wouldn’t spread in case someone else found the notes.

“I’ve tried reaching him. But _nothing_. He wants nothing to do with me. He doesn’t want this child. He would want me to drink moontea. I know he would. Jon would _never_ abandon his child and--”

“If Jon would never abandon his child,” Drustan says, “that means he doesn’t know he’s having one.”

Meera nods in agreement. “Life is rough beyond the Wall. Something might’ve happened. You should send out a search party.”

“I have,” Sansa whispers, eyes filling with tears she can’t stop. “I’ve done everything I can. They didn’t find _anything_. I think he’s left. Maybe Essos. Somewhere warm. He wanted that once. Or he’s gone.” She squeezes her eyes shut at that thought, refuses to entertain it further. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.”

“Then keep the baby.”

“I can’t. Not without his blessing. If he’s not here within two weeks, I’ll take moontea.”

“Sansa--”

“I can’t do this alone! He said I’d be a bad mother. And I would. I’d be _awful_.”

She muffles her sobs with her hands lest she wakes the baby and Meera rushes to her side, pulls her into her arms and rocks her gently from side to side. Drustan’s robes rustle as he stands. With murmured words about this being girls’ night after all, he drops a kiss to the crown of Sansa’s head, rubs her back, and slips out of the chamber.

“Do you want to sleep in here tonight?” Meera strokes Sansa’s hair back and dries her tears with her sleeve. “We’ll share a bed. You, me, and Wylis.”

Sniffling, Sansa nods. 

Once they’re dressed in their night-clothes and have curled up in bed with the babe between them, Meera whispers into the dark that Jon didn’t mean it, that it was his hurt feelings and confusion talking, and that he never would’ve entered the arrangement unless he thought Sansa would be a wonderful mother. Unless he was _confident_.

She’s right. Sansa knows she’s right. But what does it matter what Jon believes? He is warm and forgiving and generous. He sees the best in people. She’s become cold and harsh and bitter. Paranoid. She’s not the sweet little girl anymore who gave Rickon baths and kissed Bran’s scuffed knees better and sang Arya to sleep when she had nightmares.

Jon might’ve not have believed his words deep down, but Sansa does. She knows they’re true. And she knows that, if he shows up again against all odds, he’ll never want to be intimate with her again. Not in any way. And she shouldn't want it either. 

Whatever almost happened between her and Jon is over.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Jon lays down his tools, wipes his damp forehead on the sleeve of his thin bone-white tunic and accepts with a grateful nod a bowl of stew and a heel of bread from a freckled-face girl. Then he heads over to his favorite spot shaded by a group of small and gnarly birches and settles down in the soft, mossy grass. There he blows on the chunks of reindeer meat and root vegetables bobbing in the fragrant broth before slurping of the hearty meal and exhaling his satisfaction.

“It’s coming along nicely!” Ronne stands before him with his hands on his hips and appraises the steadily growing stable. “You’re good at this.”

“Not doing it on my own. Didn’t even plan it.” 

“Sometimes, learning how to take praise is a good thing.”

Jon breathes out a chuckle and slurps more stew. 

“Not long now, is it? Before it’s done.”

“Never built a stable before. Couldn’t say.”

“Will you stay? Here. Once you’re done. You’re good with animals. We could use your help once we start taming horses and reindeer.”

“Suppose it depends.” Jon dips the bread into the stew to soften it before shoving it into his mouth. “Are you ever going to tell me what you’re doing up here?”

“Are you ever gonna tell me what _you’re_ doing up here?”

“I’m building a stable.”

Laughing, Ronne joins him on the ground. Whatever work the man is doing keeps him either on the road or in the half-finished (and for Jon off-limits) stone building located farther up the valley. Unlike Jon, whose tan has deepened during the weeks up here, he’s so pale he looks white in the sunlight.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Ronne says. “For Torrhen’s Square. Anything you need? Ravens you need to send. Anything.”

“We should get a rookery.”

“We?”

Jon lifts one corner of his mouth in a smile. “If I stay, do I get those dots?” He nods at Ronne’s wrist. Most people here have them. The boys he arrived with received theirs after only a few days. Two black dots. One green. “What colors would I get?”

“If you do, it’s for life. You have to make a vow.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Would it be the first time you _honored_ the vow?”

“Yeah,” Jon drawls, rubbing his beard, “that’s fair.”

He finishes the meal and pulls up his knees, crossing his arms to rest atop them while looking out over the grassy valley. Two women in plain dresses pass them, smiling in greeting while heading toward the simple gardens where they grow vegetables, tubers, blackcurrant, and herbs. They grew up in the Stormlands, he knows, but the people here come from all over. There are even one or two from Essos. All of them passed through the true North over the years, at times only a mile or so from where he’s been building cabins, and he’s not noticed a thing.

“So, Jon the Builder, what are you running from? Can be good for us to know. In case it catches up with you.”

“Who says I’m running from anything?”

“Most people here are. And I did see you. Hurled your sword into the mere and all. Clean slate, yeah?” Ronne fires off a grin. “It’s usually a woman, ain’t it? That sends men running. Or the law, but then you wouldn't have tried getting rid of that sword.”

“It’s a lot of things.”

Jon breathes in deeply and rests his eyes on the snow-kissed mountaintops surrounding them. Despite having been here for weeks, he’s barely spoken with anyone but Ronne, prefers to work hard, sleep alone, eat alone. Sometimes he listens to the men, women, and few children playing and singing in the evenings, but more often he curls up with Shadow beneath the stars with a lantern by his side and reads one of the books the community has gathered, or just admires the world around him that lay untouched for eons before this lot occupied Korpsilmae Valley.

He doesn’t _feel_ alone, though. For the first time in years there’s always someone around, and more than a few prefer companionable silence over pointless prattle. Their presence does something. The homey noises of them, of their feet trampling grass or treading stone paths, of their hands working with wood and stone or tending to plants or goats, or their lungs breathing the crisp mountain air. It reminds him of the Night’s Watch only more peaceful--and sometimes he thinks they are. That they’re here to keep an eye on the world.

He glances at the large area forbidden to him. He thinks other things too. Suspects.

Perhaps he _should_ join them. He could stay up here forever where the rest of the world doesn’t quite exist. He could work, say a vow, get his dots, get to know them. But then he needs to tell them why he ran. Perhaps he should. Perhaps he should lay his confessions in the soft mossy grass like seeds and let them taste the air and the earth and the rain and grow into something else apart from him. Something that can’t chase after him and catch him.

“It’s a woman,” Jon says, slowly, one little seed falling to the ground.

Ronne only nods knowingly without looking at Jon. So Jon drops another little seed and another, each one small, each one dropped carefully while he watches Ronne through the corner of his eye. But Ronne doesn’t pick up the seeds nor does he push them deeper into the ground and poke and prod. He merely acknowledges them every so often with a hum or a nod, and soon Jon’s spilled more than he ever intended. Carefully, though. No names. Vague details. Even though Ronne will live in Korpsilmae Valley for the rest of his days, he’s a Wing and the Wings sometimes fly down from the mountains and soar across Westeros before returning home to roost.

Ronne sits quietly for a long time, digesting or waiting for more, Jon can’t quite say. Finally, once Jon has sat tired for a long while too, Ronne fires off another of his smiles. The ones that are so quick, almost a bit intense, they threw Jon off at first for he’s spent too much time around court-bred people who use smiles as weapons.

“Well,” Ronne says, “she sounds like a handful.”

Jon smiles crookedly. “Aye, she is. Quite a handful.” He picks at a small hole on the knee of his breeches. Sansa would’ve mended it for him by now. “I like them that way.”

“Ah, fiery women.”

“Wouldn’t use that word.”

“No.” Ronne shakes his head. “You’re right about that. Not after…”

A shudder travels through them both. Ronne used to have nightmares too, Jon knows. After King’s Landing.

“ _Passionate_. That’s the word for it. Or… wolflike? That’s what you Starks are, right?"

"Not a Stark."

"As good as. You were raised by wolves. That’s what you want? Someone who bites and snarls a bit at you.”

“I don’t know,” Jon mumbles but he does know.

Yes, he wants someone who bites and snarls a bit, but not burns. Never burns.

(It took him much too long to realize ice burns too.)

“You do. I can tell.” Ronne laughs. “Someone who bites and snarls before kissing it better.”

Aye, but she’s not good at that, is she?

Or at least she doesn’t want to be. Not with Jon. A thought that once smarted, but up here, high above the world, safe behind craggy mountains in a valley unknown to the known world, everything feels a bit less. He rarely dreams of Sansa now. Rarely thinks about her. 

When he does, though, his heated final words to her ring in his head and spread an uncomfortable burn through his body. 

Tormund drove her to it. Tormund and red wine and loneliness. Jon should’ve said no, not grabbed her hand and jumped eagerly into too-deep water and scolded her when she got scared and wanted to return to shore.

He was right in leaving; she’s better off without him.

Jon takes a deep breath and slaps his knees. “Need to get back to work.”

“Never told me if you needed anything.”

“Oh. Suppose… There are a few things in my cabin. You could take it all, if you want. Give it to the community.”

He’s still working on the stables a week later, when Ronne returns from his travels with a young girl with spindly arms and legs, and thin dark hair. The women flock around her instantly, fussing over her and talking about feeding her and clothing her and whatnot, while Ronne runs over to Jon with round eyes and his breath in his throat.

Out of his pocket he pulls two handfuls of scrolls. “I went by your cabin. Found these. I can’t read that great yet but…”

He hands them over to Jon, who unfurls one of them.

_Please reply. I don’t know what to do._

A shiver runs through him. He unfurls another.

_If you don’t come back within two weeks, I’ll have to do it. I’m running out of time._

With shaky fingers, he unfurls a third.

_Sometimes it only takes once._

He drops the scrolls with a shuddering intake of breath. Sinks to his knees. Picks them back up and quickly skims through the rest. They’re all the same. Carefully worded sigil-free scrolls in Sansa’s pretty hand-writing.

She’s pregnant.

She hasn’t taken moontea.

But she will. Unless he comes back. 

Jon stares at the second scroll again. Unless time’s already run out.

But if it hasn’t, if she hasn’t done it, that means…

She wants the baby. Or she wouldn’t bother sending scrolls at all.

She wants _his_ baby.  
  


The ride to Castle Black is a blur. He remembers only flashes of it. Climbing down the mountain, through secret passageways lost to him but Shadow luckily remembered. Galloping over the vast fell leading to the Haunted Forest. Winding between trees in an infuriatingly slow pace until the forest opened up before the Wall. She’s exhausted. Shadow. If he drives her harder she’ll die. He hops off and leads her through the gates, scans the courtyard of Castle Black for a familiar face, finds an old brother who now mans the tavern where traders eat and drink. Calls his name.

“Give me a fresh horse.”

“Don’t sell horses.”

“Give me a horse now,” Jon says, stalking up to him, “and take care of Shadow. I’ll come back for her.”

“How much gold you got?”

Jon takes a step closer, grabs the man by the tunic, and stares up at his pockmarked face. “Give me. A bleeding. Horse.”

“Yes, Lord Commander.”

Jon swings himself up and off they fly, the ground whooshing beneath swift hooves. He’s miles and miles away when he realizes he could’ve sent Sansa a raven from Castle Black, but it’s too late now. He can only plow on, can only thunder down the Kingsroad with his heart in his throat. That ache she spoke of, the one she felt in her body, he feels it too. A weight across his chest. A knot in his stomach. A desperation driving him forward so quickly his racing thoughts can’t keep up and leave his mind blank.

He arrives by nightfall, hops off the horse without giving a bleeding fuck whether anyone’s there to take care of it, flies up the stairs, tears through the Keep with his heart beating so loudly he has no idea whether anyone tries greeting him or talking to him. He passes door after door until he finds the dining chamber. It’s late. She’ll be supping. But she’s not. He swings around. Knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he should ask someone and yet his legs keep running until he’s outside her office. Eats in her office sometimes, she said. Didn’t she? Aye. Something about stress. He opens the door without knocking and barrels inside and there she sits by her desk with a clay cup in her hand and work in front of her and he can’t see her stomach and he doesn’t know what’s in the cup and he’s so out of breath he can’t form any words, can only stare at her with wide eyes while she stares back at him, equally wide-eyed.

He staggers forward, panting. Nods at the cup. “What...”

Sansa puts the cup down on the desk. “Chamomile.”

Then she rises to her feet and her stomach looks flat. It’s flat. He’s too late. 

“Jon?”

His chest heaves with breaths. “Did you drink? Did you do it?”

“Not yet.”

When a breath of relief rushes out of him, he sags forward and he grabs the backrest of the chair to keep himself upright. “Are you going to?”

“Do you want me to?”

He shakes his head, still trying to catch his breath and stay up on feet attached to two sorry all-too trembling excuses for legs. Her breaths match his own, as if she’s been riding for days with little pause and running through half the Keep too. Then he hears her heels, hears her skirts sweeping. He straightens himself, finds her standing with her back to him. Hiding. But she can’t hide her breathing, the shaky little breaths she takes. The muffled sobs, each one tearing in his chest, urging him to scoop her up and hold her close when he can't do anything but wait.

When she finally turns around she’s calm, collected (and tears sparkle in her eyes like snow in sunlight).

“Then I won’t,” she says, softly, her hands going to her stomach. “I won’t drink moontea.”

He stares at them. Her hands. Wants to replace them, to feel that burgeoning life beneath his palms, beneath his fingertips. 

“You’re not showing.”

“I have a corset on. But I am. A little. Showing.”

“So we’re..” He inches closer, whispering out hoarse words. “Are you _sure_?” He sees his own hand reaching out for her as if she were his to touch; he lets it drop. “You have to be _sure_.”

“I’m sure,” she whispers and he moves closer still. The smallest bit.

Her eyes wander over him. Over the sweat-soaked tunic clinging to his body. Over the wind-thrown hair framing his flushed face. Over his lips he can’t help but lick. Her nostrils flares subtly when she breathes in deeply, so deeply he can't help but think she's drawing in the scent of him. She even leans in a little, dark and hooded eyes flicking up to meet his, and now her heavy, quick breathing sounds neither like shock nor relief but something else entirely.

There’s a hunger in her. One he’s only seen glimpses of so far.

Then she blinks rapidly. Steps back from him. “You need a bath,” she says in cool voice. “I’ll tell the steward.”

She walks through the door with the posture of a queen, head held almost too high. A haughtiness she never wears comfortably. A haughtiness she always wears to disguise what she feels.

She wants him.

No. _Stop it._ She was disgusted by his appearance. He’s not bathed in days and just rode for days. He must stink. He must look a mess with his wild hair and beard he’s not bothered to trim while working in the mountains. It was revulsion--not hunger--and he, in his sleep deprivation and exhaustion, read it as something else.

Unless…

Stories about the appetites of pregnant women come to him. About how their blood runs hot, how they want and need and crave. Gullis was like that, he remembers. Tormund wouldn’t stop joking about how he couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t stop beaming about it either.

Jon thinks back on that look she gave him. It _was_ hunger, wasn't it?

Sansa is hungry and she wants him.

She carries his child and he looks like a wildling again and she wants him.

She _wants_ him.

And no matter how much ice can burn, no matter how foolish he knows it is, no matter how much worse it'll make everything, he wants her too and saying no to her was never easy.

Jon swallows audibly.

Well, _fuck_.


	13. A Risky Recipe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there be smut in this chapter

Shadow trots on through endless woods. Spiderwebs slung between branches break against his face, tickling him under his nose. He’s been riding for days, for an eternity. Above, the overcast sky rumbles with thunder. Raindrops big as goose eggs fall and fall until he’s soaked through, his hair slick against his neck and shoulders. His eyes glide shut, reins falling from a lax hand, body growing heavier and heavier, and he starts sliding out of the saddle--

Jon sits up with a gasp, water sloshing around him, his fingers clutching something cool and sleek. The rim of a copper bathtub. Before him is a door. A Winterfell door. Oh, he’s indoors. He’s _home._ And that rumbling isn’t thunder. It’s knocking.

“Yeah?” he calls out.

The door glides open. She’s in the same robe as last time, but beneath is an ankle-length nightgown with swaths and swaths of gossamer fabric that brush the flagstones, and this time her hair rests on her shoulder in a braid. Dressed for bed. No corset, then, but he can’t see her stomach now either for she carries a tray of ale and a dome-covered plate.

“Sorry.” Her eyes skirt over him before she looks away. “I can come back.”

“No, it’s all right. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

He raises the corner of his mouth in a grin he hopes is charming; she blushes and after only the briefest hesitation, steps inside and pushes the door closed with her bum before placing the tray on his desk.

He has to rest his arm on the rim of the tub and turn around to look at her. She’s facing the window, gazing out at the stars twinkling above the courtyard.

“It’s been hours,” she says. “You still hadn’t told the servants to carry out the tub. I was worried you’d fallen asleep.”

“Yeah, I… Yeah.”

He grabs the rim and pushes himself to stand, water dripping from his body and hair onto the floor when he grabs the robe laid out on the bed. The clothes he arrived in lie in a dirty heap on the floor. He pushes it aside with his foot and pulls on the robe over his damp body, securing it at the waist with a hasty knot.

“I’m decent.”

Turning around, Sansa draws a breath as if to speak, but when her eyes land on him, her mouth stays open and silent while her gaze rove over him and the way the robe clings to his wet body. The way it clings to his arms, his stomach, his thighs… She likes what she sees too, takes far too long to gather her wits and avert her gaze to ever deny she was devouring him.

He walks tall and broad-chested to the desk to grab the tray. Sansa jolts with a shuddering little breath when he comes close. If he pushed her up against the wall now and kissed her, would she kiss him back? If he grabbed her hips and pulled her close, would she moan and rock against him?

“I thought,” she says, eyes downcast, “maybe you wanted to…”

Her lashes flutter as she looks back into his eyes and his heart beats so hard she must be able to hear it. She’ll ask him, tell him she’s _frustrated_ , that she’s not drunk this time, that she knows what she's doing, that she _wants--_

“I’ve had no one to talk to about this. The baby. It had to be a secret.”

 _Right._ Of course she wants to talk about their child and not… Well, he’s an idiot. Jon clears his throat. “No one knows?”

“No, a few people know. Maester Wolkan. My handmaidens of course. Meera and Drustan.”

Jon scrunches up his face. “ _Drustan_ knows?”

“Don’t be like that.”

“You told your former lover before you told me?”

“I tried telling you! I tried for _weeks_. Where _were_ you?”

“You told me you--!” No. He can’t yell at the woman carrying his child. With a sigh, he calms himself and tries again, “I thought you’d get rid of it. If it only took once. You said you didn’t want it. With me. I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again.”

Sansa exhales, the sudden flare of anger rushing out with that breath and softening her demeanor too. “I was confused. This is a very strange situation. And nothing like I imagined.”

“Imagined?”

Her eyes wander over him again, over the sliver of bare chest, over his upper arms, before she sweeps past him and positions herself in front of the chest at the end of his bed where she adopts the pose of a queen standing before her people and starts speaking in the voice and tempo of a well-rehearsed reciter.

“What goes on in the marital bed is a duty. Not that we’re married, but marriage is an arrangement and what we’re doing is an arrangement. I never imagined I’d find myself in this situation with you until I did. And so I imagined it would be a duty. Something we didn’t _want_ to do, but would do because we wanted the result.”

Jon huffs out a breath. “Yeah.”

“The way we woke up that morning. It wasn’t how I had imagined it. It was satisfying--it was--but it wasn’t supposed to be. And the thought of doing it again…” She lets her queen’s mask fall and becomes Sansa again. “Jon. Considering who we were to one another once, it had to have been strange for you as well.”

“Yeah,” he says, but it wasn’t strange. It was the most natural thing in the world, as if they were always meant to be together. As if that’s what the gods designed before a trickster tugged at the wrong thread and unraveled it all, and Jon had to be a bastard rather than a prince.

“At least we don’t have to do it again,” she says with a quick smile and eyes that won’t quite meet his.

“Yeah?" He clicks his tongue. "And here I was, hoping for siblings."

Her mouth drops open and he is not a good man. He's not. A good man wouldn’t feel this pleased about finally having found a way to disarm her weapon of choice. But after a lifetime of bumbling around the perfect lady like a pup whose little body doesn’t match its too-big paws and floppy ears, seeing her flustered sends a wicked thrill through him. Despite the fire burning low, he can even tell her cheeks are flushed a pretty pink.

“Well”-- she sits down on the chest and adjusts the fit of her robe and nightgown, making sure they cover her appropriately and fall smoothly from her knees--“I suppose that’s something to be discussed at a later date. It would be unwise to make any decisions at this moment.”

Tray in hand, Jon joins her where she sits and uncovers the plate. Pork drizzled with plum sauce, roast fowl with grilled peach halves, butter-tossed vegetables, a swirl of tuber mash, a strawberry pastry, and two spiced honey biscuits. A spread of leftovers from a feast. A much finer feast than the one celebrating little Squirrel.

“Your nameday,” he says. “It’s your nameday.”

“Two days ago.”

He smiles softly. “And I don’t have a gift.”

“You already gave me something,” she murmurs. “The only thing I actually wanted.” Her eyes fill with tears and she looks up, dabbing her eyes with her fingertips. “I’m sorry. Everything makes me cry now. Even sweet things.”

“Yeah?” he says, smiling softly at her. “Like what?”

“Well, Meera is here and every time Wylis, her son, does something adorable, I’m bawling. One of the dogs in the kennels just had pups and I have to avoid going there because if I do, people will know because I can’t keep it together. And…”

With a wonderful, gentle smile on her face, she keeps talking about all the good things that have made her cry lately while he digs into his food. She talks about her health and the changes she’s experiencing, and how grateful she is over not having to start each day by vomiting like last time. But soon she talks about all the things she wants to do too. The garments she wants to knit and sew. The embroidery she wants to do. The patchwork baby quilt she’s dreamed of making ever since she was a girl of a wolf pup playing beneath the heart-tree. Little things he can tell by her breathless joy and the tears trickling from her eyes, she’s not allowed herself to voice until now. Until he came back.

He might’ve not been the first to learn about the baby or even the fifth, but he’s the first who gets to hear about _this_. And it makes him beam too, makes him forget about his manners. He only realizes he’s eating with his hands when he scoops up a dollop of mash with a strip of swan meat, brings it to his lips, and catches her staring at him--not with disgust at his table manners but with hunger.

“You want some?”

“What?” she breathes out.

“Are you hungry? Eating for two.”

“Oh. Yes. Always.” She shakes her head. “No. It’s for you.”

“You’re carrying my child.” He pushes the plate closer to her. “I’d rather starve.”

“You don’t have to be so dramatic. We can share.”

“Aye. We can share.”

She picks up the utensils and eats like a lady while he still eats like a man of the mountain. He asks her about her nameday celebration and she tells him about the guests and the gifts. Innocent smalltalk that fills the silence but does nothing to hide that her appetite has increased in more ways than one. She keeps stealing glances of him, of his thighs, his chest, his hands, his lips. When he grabs the strawberry pastry and bites into it and filling squirts out and he wipes his chin with his thumb and sucks it into his mouth, she even releases a shaky breath and shifts in her seat. Her cheeks are flushed, and so is the little he can see of her chest. But when he tries catching her eyes, tries holding her gaze for a moment to see whether this can lead anywhere at all, she looks away and nibbles delicately on a spiced honey biscuit.

She wants him, aye. But does she _want_ to want him?

Jon licks his fingers and swallows down the last of the ale. “Thank you. I was starving.”

“You’re welcome. I assumed you hadn’t eaten in a while.”

“No. Don’t think I’ve ridden that fast in my life.”

“I thought you didn’t care. That you’d seen my scrolls and ignored them.”

“No, I was far far north. Honestly, Sansa, I didn’t expect to ever hear from you again.”

“I know.”

“Would you really have taken moontea if I hadn’t come?”

“I would’ve tried to but…” She lays down the biscuit and brushes the crumbs off her fingers onto the tray. “I can feel it. The baby. It’s faint but I can feel it.”

“You can?”

“Yes. It’s like…” She reaches for his hand. Stops. Looks at him for permission. He gives it with a nod, and she takes his hand and lays it in her own, palm up. “Like this,” she says, and taps her finger against the hollow of his palm, quick, steady, and light. “Like the smallest little kicks.” She touches her belly far below the belly button. “Right here.”

“Now?”

She nods, smiling. “I _think_ it’s the baby at least. Never felt anything like it before.”

“Can I?”

“I don’t think you can feel it, but we can try if you want."

Jon nods eagerly. He’s been sitting angled toward her on the bench, but now she positions herself in front of him and he shifts so that she stands between his knees. After shrugging off the robe, she throws it across the footboard of the bed. The nightgown is open in the front, a slit running up all the way up to the dragonfly-shaped clasps beneath her breasts. She separates the swaths of fabric and reveals delicate short-legged smallclothes and the smallest swell of her bare stomach. 

He reaches out with trembling fingers, ghosting them over the bump; her skin prickles. She takes his hand and leads it right, placing it low on her belly and holding her own hand over his, pressing it closer.

“There.”

He closes his eyes, relaxes, waits. Exhales his disappointment. “I can’t feel anything."

“You will. We just have to let him grow stronger.”

“Him? You think it's a boy?

“I don’t know. I sort of hope so. The world is kinder to boys.”

“I’d like a boy. Or a girl. Doesn’t matter. As long as it's..." _Ours_. "Mine."

" _That_ I can promise, at least," she says, a smile in her voice.

He adds his other hand, and Sansa removes hers to give room for him. His nose stings when he finally cups that gentle swell with both hands. His child. He’s going to be a father. He’s going to have a family. Blinking rapidly, he releases a shuddering breath.

“Do you think he can hear me?” he whispers.

“I don’t know.”

As if this moment is as fragile as the first thin layer of ice in late autumn, she whispered too lest she breaks it. And when he gazes up at her, it’s into soft blue eyes as glossy with tears as his own must be and that frail little hope that once broke in his chest starts to heal. She might not love him now, but perhaps one day she will. Her mother and father did not love each other when they married. But as they built their lives together, as they had children and became a pack, they did fall in love and they loved each other deeply and truly for the rest of their days.

Is it so strange to think he and Sansa could have the same journey together?

He closes his eyes before she can see the hope in them, the wish, and rests his forehead against her stomach. No, it’s not strange, but it must be naive. A boyhood fantasy not anchored in reality. Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully were the outliers not the rule. He’s lived long enough to know most never experience mutual romantic love--not even once. And he already has. Perhaps he should be grateful for that instead of greedy for more. He had his Ygritte; Sansa had her Drustan. And now they have each other and as long as they favor smooth roads over bumpy ones, their journey should be fine and so should they. Him and her and the baby.

Gentle fingers thread through his hair, combing through his damp locks. Jon leans into her more fully, sighing his pleasure.

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “For coming.”

“Yeah,” he breathes against her belly, brushing over the swell with his thumbs.

“You tired? You should probably sleep.”

He hums in agreement, but she’s still stroking his hair and it’s the most glorious sensation he’s felt in his life. Every time her nails scrape across his scalp, waves of gooseflesh spread over his body and leave a sense of peace in their wake. He slides his hands to her back, holding her close, and still she strokes his hair and there’s not a single sensible thought in his head, only a need to stay just like this, connected with his child and its mother showing him affection in a way entirely new to them.

When Sansa eventually takes his hands from the small of her back and brings them between them, he sits back and blinks groggily up at her like a man drunk from plenty of ale.

“Did you fall asleep again?”

He smiles. “Maybe.”

“Come. You need your rest. You came a long way.”

She tugs at his hands, pulling him to his feet; they stand so close now, holding hands, like a man and woman who have just uttered vows and are ready to seal them. Her lips part softly, eyes flickering between his as if to read his intention; she’s breathing as if they’re already entangled in bed and he just had his face pressed low against her belly and maybe that stirred something in her, something he didn’t notice for all he felt was the wonder of her caring touch. 

_Come_ , she said as she tugged at him. Come lie down with her? Is that what she meant? Is that why she came to his chamber?

He inches closer, one foot between hers. Her subtle, shaky intake of breath thrills him. The way she drops his hands and grabs his waist, fingers clutching his robe and pulling him closer still, thrills him even more.

Her eyes are locked on his; his drops to her lips. 

“I don’t want you to kiss me,” she whispers.

It stings. It does. He’s good enough to give her a baby, good enough to fuck, but not good enough to love. Not even for a night.

“I _never_ want you to kiss me.”

Something twists inside him. He leans in even closer, so close the tips of their noses brush. Her grip on him tightens, but she doesn’t pull away.

“No,” he whispers, his breath hot between them, “you just want me to fuck you.”

Her fingers dig into his hips. When she breathes, her breasts push against his chest. And still she stays, right there, when he’s not touching her at all. When she could leave easily.

“Isn’t that right, Sansa? It’s not just food you’re hungry for. You’re _frustrated_.” He cups her waist, drags his hand to the small of her back and pushes her into him, his fingers splayed over her spine. “Just admit it. You want me. Not the wildling I’ve become. Not the stranger. You want Jon Snow. The bastard you grew up despising. The man who stole your crown after you won the Battle of the Bastards. The man who gave away the kingdom that should’ve been yours. The man who ran away and let you handle everything on your own. The man who’s Stark enough to fight your battles for you, but not Stark enough to be your family. You want me. Just admit it. Or are you too proud?”

“Would that make you feel good?”

“Aye, it would. It would make me feel good.”

“I don’t. I don’t want you.”

“No?” He holds his hands up, palms out, and backs away from her. “The door is there. No one’s stopping you from leaving.”

She glances at the door before returning her attention to him, chest still heaving with breaths.

“You’re staring,” he says, voice hoarse. “You’ve stared at me all night. You want me. And you can have me. For tonight. If you admit it.”

She scoffs. “You never wanted to see me again, and now you want to fuck me?”

“Aye. Perhaps I’m frustrated too. It’s not as if I can go fuck someone else, is it?”

She brings her hands together as if to fidget, lets them drop again. “Have you been with anyone else?”

“Would that bother you?”

“I’m carrying your child. Of course it would bother me.”

“I haven’t. Have you?”

“Yes. I suddenly overcame my paranoia and invited half the lords of Westeros and their servants too into my bed, and it still wasn’t enough for me to feel sated. I’m still so _frustrated_ I’m willing to take you of all people as my lover.”

“You are, though." He narrows his eyes, taking on a mocking tone. "I’m not so tired I haven’t noticed you’re still here. So if you don’t want me”--he takes a step closer, looking up at her with his head cocked to the side--”if you really don’t want me, just leave. But if you do want me, admit it and I’ll fuck you all night, if you want.”

Another shaky intake of breath. A glimpse of pink tongue wetting her lips swiftly. “I don’t.”

“All right.”

He undoes the belt of his robe, drops it on the floor. Moves to shrug his arms out of the sleeves.

“What are you doing?”

“Undressing. I’m going to bed. What are _you_ doing? Can’t find your way out?” He breathes out in a crooked smile and returns to her, proffering his arm. “Come, Your Grace, I’ll escort you back to your chambers.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Is that a command?”

“Do you need it to be?”

“Sansa, if you admit you want me, you can order me about as much as you like--but only in bed. You are _not_ my queen.”

“I don’t want to be.” She licks her lips and walks into the scant space between them. “And I don’t want _you_. I never did. I wanted your seed. That’s all. And…” She touches the scar across his heart and runs her fingers down his chest, his stomach, over his hip bone, and down his thigh before turning her hand and raking her nails up the inside of it. Then she cups him and looks straight into his eyes.

“I just want your cock, Jon. I want your cock and your fing--”

She breathes out in an _oooh_ when he grabs her around the waist and dips her, just a bit, his mouth going to the column of her neck to kiss and nip at her soft skin. To follow the line of her collarbone to the hollow of her throat. Her hands are between them, fumbling with her dragonfly clasps, and once they’re open he helps her tug off the nightgown until it flutters to the floor. Her smallclothes follow, his robe too. She smells like summer rain between her breasts, fresh and sweet. He kisses her breastbone, the swell of her breast, sucks her nipple into his mouth. With a moan, she winds her finger into his hair and keeps him right there as he toys with the peak between his lips.

Without releasing her for even a breath, he maneuvers her around until he hears the bedframe hit the back of her thighs. There he finally releases her breast only to kiss and suck at the other until she’s keening and squirming in his embrace, pushing herself against his growing cock. He moves his hand to between her thighs. She’s wet already. So fucking wet. But when he tries getting her to lie down so he can taste that wetness, she turns them around and pushes him onto the bed instead.

“I need you,” she whispers. “ _Now_.”

Jon moves to the middle of the bed; Sansa stares at his half-hard cock and licks her lips in a way that puts impossible images into his head. She’d never. She’s a lady. She’d _never_ \--especially not with him. She climbs atop him; he props himself up on his elbows to watch her as she straddles him. But she doesn't. She scoots down. Lowers her head. Her braid falls to his thigh. Jon can’t breathe, can't form a single coherent thought, can only stare with wide eyes as she takes him into her warm, wet mouth. 

His head hits the pillow with a strangled moan, eyes rolling back in his head. She hums around him, over and over, as if she’s enjoying it, as if she’s dreamed about it, wanted to do it for ages, and it’s the wildest thing and he _must_ be dreaming, still in the tub with his own hand around his cock, and he lifts his head again just so he can see it with his own eyes. Hers are closed as she keeps making appreciative noises in the back of her throat while sliding her pink lips up and down him, saliva running down his length, until he’s so hard he could peak any moment if he let go. Then, as if he's hard enough for her liking, she releases him, swipes her thumb across her bottom lip, and looks at him with hooded eyes.

“Good?” she murmurs as she straddles him.

He manages out something, has no fucking idea what he said, couldn’t care less for Sansa is lining him up and her eyes flutter closed and her teeth bite into her bottom lip when she sinks down on him, slowly slowly, until he’s sheathed to the hilt. She breathes out something he can’t hear and rocks against him in a self-indulgently slow pace. One that makes him feel as if she’s using him for her own pleasure and he loves it (and hates it too, just a bit).

“Touch me,” she says, panting, and fumbles after his hand and brings it to where they’re joined. “Right there.”

She’s so slippery his fingers glide easily over her swollen clit, and he rubs her in a steady, quick pace while she fucks him. Barely five thrusts later she tenses up, and he bucks up against her hard and fast as she moans through her peak before collapsing atop him with her hot face buried in the crook of his neck.

“Well, that has to be some sort of record,” he says.

For two heartbeats she’s dead silent. Then he feels her chuckling quietly against his throat.

“Shut up,” she says and plants her hands on either side of him for purchase, pushing herself up on all fours.

They find their rhythm quickly, the perfect push and pull, as if their bodies don't give a damn that Jon and Sansa never learned how to get along. Her breasts jiggle in his face, nipples dancing over his lips. He wipes his sticky fingers over one of them before licking it clean, the taste of her arousal delicious against his tongue. She cups the back of his head and keeps him there, tells him to touch her again and he waits for her to lift up enough for him to put his hand between them, and then they fuck again and he’s sucking on her nipple while she rides him and he needs _more_ and grabs her hip with his free hand, digs his fingers into the supple flesh of her bum, and urges her to move and she does and her needy little whimpers fill his ears and he’s so close that he grabs her with his other hand too so he can control the way she bounces atop him and then presses her down hard while he pushes up and spills inside the wet heat of her with a grunt.

“Keep going,” she whispers, straightening up a bit and touching herself, her fingers swift. “I’m so close.”

He’s sensitive and he’s already come, but she's gorgeous and needy and he loves her and he keeps thrusting into her with a cock that will soften any moment and, _seven hells_ , come already. Then, finally, her brows tug together and her mouth falls open and she comes with a stuttering moan that leaves her collapsing atop him for the second time in almost no time at all.

He’d be surprised if it took them half an hour. He’d be surprised if it took them half of that, even.

“You really were frustrated, huh.”

Sansa rolls off him and settles down next to him on the bed, catching her breath as she stares up at the ceiling. “It’s common, apparently. My increased appetite.”

“Yeah. I remember Gullis had a similar--”

“Oh, _Gullis_.” Sansa laughs again and it spreads a nice warmth in his belly. “I’d forgotten about that. Tormund was ecstatic.”

Jon folds his arms beneath his head, staring up at the ceiling too. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

The fire has died now. Only the fat candles he lit on the mantelpiece before his bath provide them with light, but they were low to begin with and burning even lower. One candle dies. He watches the other two, how the flames flicker in the slight draft.

“Did it feel strange this time too?” he murmurs into the dimly lit room.

“I don’t know. Sometimes it takes a while. To realize you didn’t want what you thought you wanted.”

And that stings too. A needle in his heart. “Yeah.”

“But,” she says, and his stupid heart beats a little faster as if it weren’t a needle at all that pierced it but a hook, “I think I might want this again.”

“Any time,” he says because his mouth his stupid too.

“Do you mean that?” She rolls over on her side; he keeps his eyes on the light dancing on the ceiling. “I will take you up on that offer.”

“Aye. I have an appetite too.” He knows his grin doesn’t reach his eyes, but it’s too dark and she can only see his profile anyway. “Any time, Sansa.”

“Tomorrow? Before we break our fast.”

“That soon, huh.”

“I have very vivid dreams. I always wake up… frustrated.”

“All right. Tomorrow. Before breakfast.”

“I should let you sleep,” she says and sits up, legs already swung over the edge of the bed.

“Or you could stay. Save you the trip.”

He chances a look at her, at her pale back with its many scars, at how her ribcage moves when she breathes. Then she shakes her head and gets her clothes, taking her time putting her smallclothes and nightgown back on, closing the clasps. Shrugging on the robe. Tying the belt. And she never looks at him. Not even once. Not even the slightest glance. Because he’s not good enough to love. He’s not even good enough for her to even entertain the idea that this could be something else. Something deeper.

Dressed, she heads to the door while he lies naked in bed, watching her leave. Her hand is on the handle. Pressing it down. The door glides open. She steps through the doorway and now she'll leave and he shouldn't have said _any time_. Twice is enough. More is greedy. More is risky.

But then she stops, hovering in the doorway for a beat before turning to look at him over her shoulder.

She looks soft in the waning candlelight. Glowing. And he smiles at her. A faint smile. A foolish plea. _Please smile back at me_. _Please come back to bed._

"I'll see you tomorrow," she whispers with a smile as faint as his and yet monumental for it reaches her eyes and it's _real_.

Perhaps he’s not foolish to hope, after all. Perhaps this will deepen into something real with time if they let it. Perhaps he's not foolish to hope that one day they will be the Starks of Winterfell with a pack of their own.


	14. Promises Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank everyone who has patience with this fic, and everyone who is enjoying the ride and leaving such wonderful comments. You’re really inspiring me and helping in motivating me. It’s a fun story to write and I’m very grateful that there are people out there as interested in this type of story as I am. Thank you! <3

His chamber is empty, the hearth long dead, the candles burned until they’re mere splats of now-hard wax. His bed is cold and the tub still stands in the middle of the room. Sansa’s heart sinks in her chest. He left after all. He got to bed the woman he resents, got to feel superior for a moment, and now he has no reason to stick around. She’ll probably not see him again until the baby comes. 

Blinking over and over to clear her blurry vision, she sinks down on the bed. She even dressed up in something pretty like the idiot she is. Something delicate and lacy she thought he would like. Why does she never--

A piece of parchment lies on his nightstand. That wasn’t there last night.

_Left Shadow at the Wall. Can’t sleep knowing she’s there all alone. I’ll be back tomorrow. Promise._

Sansa presses the scroll to her heart with a sigh of relief. She even smiles, as if she’s a little girl with a little girl’s hopes and dreams when she’s a woman grown who knows better. If Jon treats her differently, gently, sweetly, if he shows her more care and concern, it's because she's pregnant with his child. While always fond of his wife, Drustan didn't grow to properly love Cora until she had their daughter. And even Roose Bolton treated Walda with respect and kindness once she carried his child. Sansa would do well to remember it.

She crumbles the note into a ball and returns to her chamber where she throws it into the smoldering hearth. 

* * *

While Kari and Ella dress her, Sansa practices in her head over and over how to share the news with Meera. Where she should start, what she should say, how much of it she should reveal. At least Drustan left yesterday. He would’ve seen straight through her, just thrown her one look and known, but with Meera she has a chance. By the time Sansa leaves her chamber, she has a whole speech prepared. But as she sits down by the breakfast table and draws a breath to recite it, Meera excitedly says she’s already heard rumors that Jon Snow returned to Winterfell.

“They said he ran up and down the hallways like a madman desperate to find you. That’s good, isn’t it? It must be good. He wants the babe. Right? You're keeping it?”

A happiness fills Sansa then, one so pure and bright it steals her voice. She can only nod and beam and cry into her friend’s dark brown curls when Meera throws an arm around her and hugs her close, little Wylis snug between them. When Meera pulls back they’re both laughing through tears, their joy so infectious the baby laughs too.

“Does this mean he’s staying?” Meera asks.

“I don’t know. We never talked about that. We mostly talked about the baby.”

“Where is he?” Does he always sleep in? I am not leaving until I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”

Sansa shakes her head fondly at her. “He’s getting his horse from the Wall. I’m not sure when he left, but his note said he’d be back today.”

“So you didn’t sleep together?”

“Why would we sleep together?”

“I don’t know,” Meera says and grabs a strip of bacon, biting off half. “Why _would_ you sleep together?”

Sansa dips bread into her soft-boiled egg. “We didn’t. We slept separately.”

“Uh-huh.”

The room feels very warm suddenly. Sansa drinks half the water in her cup. Wylis fusses. Meera unlaces the front of her tunic and helps him latch on, holding him with one hand and eating with the other. Their chewing sounds like boots stomping a mudpit. The scrapes of knife and fork sound like a blacksmith forging weapons. Wylis big gulps sound like a ringing gong.

Sansa’s blushing now. Her whole face prickles with heat while Meera calmly eats and feeds her boy.

“You look warm, Sansa. Perhaps we should open a window.”

Sansa breathes through her nose and lays down her utensils. “All right. If you must know. We were intimate.”

Meera pretends to gasp. “ _Really_?”

“But we did sleep separately.”

“So, you didn’t talk, not really,” Meera says, regarding her with knitted brow, “and you didn’t sleep in the same bed. But you _lay_ together. What does that mean?”

“It means we’re two people who share a bed when need strikes.”

Meera tucks herself back into her tunic and props up Wylis on one knee, bouncing him gently until he burps. “I thought you had feelings for him.”

“That was years ago.”

“Feelings can return.”

“They can, but they haven’t.”

“Does he know that? If he thinks this is something it’s not--”

Sansa lets out a hollow laugh. “He’s never loved me. Believe me, he’s not the one who's in risk of ending up--” She rolls her lips into her mouth and lifts her chin as if she can distance herself from the words that nearly fell from her mouth. “He’s always felt inferior because he was a bastard. Always felt that he didn’t belong. He doesn’t want _me_. He wants what I represent. It makes him feel good about himself. That he can have me. It makes him feel better.”

“Sansa,” Meera says in a tone of voice that makes her want to cry. “If that’s true, he’s using you.”

Sansa holds her head higher. “We’re using each other.”

“This is not going to end well. I think you know that.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so judgmental about this. You’re not in love with Wylis’ father and yet he’s raising your son with you--and you were intimate _after_ you got pregnant.”

“I’m not judgmental. I’m worried. The way you feel about--”

“ _Felt_.” Sansa looks firmly at her. “Once I realized I had only loved him because he was all I had left in the world, those feelings died. And, yes, he’s all I have left now of my family, and I’m all he has left. But I learned my lesson. I’m not going to get confused again. What I feel for him now is _lust_. If you’d seen him, you’d understand.”

Meera looks at her in silence, her wide brown eyes far too kind and gentle. Sansa stares down into her egg while dipping more bread into the yolk until it’s a soggy mess.

“Didn’t you experience that?” Sansa drops the bread on her plate and wipes her fingers on a napkin. “The increased lust. I’m frustrated all the time.”

“I did. But Trask and I always knew where we stood,” Meera says. “Does Jon even know you loved him once?”

“I hope not.”

“Isn’t that something you should’ve told him?”

“What good would that do? It’s not relevant anymore. It hasn’t been in _years_.” Sansa sighs, shaking her head, and picks up the bread again. “I appreciate your concern--I do--but you’re making this into something it’s not. Jon and I are not in love. We’ll never be in love. We want the Stark name to live on, that’s all, and we have needs. We’ve already decided we shouldn’t be intimate with anyone else. So if I want my needs met, it’s either him or no one. And right now, I have very strong needs.”

“Well, you’re a woman grown.”

“Yes, I am,” Sansa says. “I know what I’m doing.”

Meera nods slowly and eats another bacon strip. The blush returns to Sansa’s cheeks. She stares at her hand still holding the bread over her plate. A mushy bit falls from her fingers and lands with a glop. Meera clears her throat and reaches for a Dornish plum from one of the fruit baskets Drustan brought and now Sansa wishes he’d stayed after all. He would’ve known how to break this uncomfortable silence while Sansa’s mind is blank and Meera nibbles on her plum until only the pit remains and she drops it into her empty cup with a clink.

“I did see him, once,” Meera says, finally. “Jon. I think I told you? The night we got so drunk.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. At Craster’s Keep.”

“But it was dark and at a distance. I barely saw his face. He looked like a good fighter, though.”

“He is. One of the best.”

“That’s good. You need a man who can protect his family. And,” Meera says, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, “you know what they say about good fighters. That they’re often good... _lovers_. Is it true?”

Sansa looks away, mouth open in a smile. “It’s…” She exhales and turns back to her friend, leaning in closer over the table. “It’s so good. But, honestly, I think _anyone_ would be good right now. I’m _very_ easy to please.”

Meera grins. “I was like that too, especially toward the end. Once, with Trask, he barely touched me and I melted instantly.”

“Yes!” Sansa grabs her hand. “That happened to me last night. Required no skill at all. He might be an _awful_ lover. I wouldn't know!"

They both break out giggling. The door glides open and in comes Jon with wind-tousled hair and sleep-wrinkled clothing, strands of grass and even a leaf or two clinging to the fabric. His eyes wander between them. Sansa and Meera both press their lips together, trying in vain to muffle the laughter still bubbling in their chests. Pink-cheeked and looking all the sullen boy of his youth, Jon plonks down in a chair and starts filling his plate while casting the occasional glance at Sansa. Meera watches him for a beat, her slightly narrowed eyes following his movements. There’s a hole in the seam running from his collar to his shoulder. The fabric of his rolled-up sleeves is tattered. Grease stains dot the front of the tunic. But Sansa knows Meera doesn’t much care about that. No, she’s looking at his veiny forearms, his strong hands, his handsome face, and the way he holds his body.

Once she's seen enough, she shoots Sansa a look with her mouth curved in the smallest of smiles.

 _Told you_ , Sansa says with a quirk of her brow.

 _Oh, all right_ , Meera says with a good-natured eyeroll.

Jon clenches his jaw and pours water into a cup, glaring a hole in the wall while he drinks.

“Jon,” Sansa says, brightly, “this is Meera Reed. Howland Reed’s daughter, and Bran's friend who helped him beyond the Wall. Meera, this is my cousin, Jon.”

Jon greets her with a nod, and Meera angles her boy toward him to show him off. "This is Wylis. My son. I named him after Hodor.”

“Hodor?”

“You didn't know? It was his real name.”

Jon’s sullen face softens and he holds out a finger for the boy, who grabs it with a smile that makes Jon smile too. “Hello, Wylis. Nice to meet you.” Wylis gurgles and waves his hands excitedly, still holding onto Jon’s finger. “I did sleep very well, thank you. How did you sleep?”

The baby laughs; Jon’s smile grows. Oh, this is new. Jon didn't even interact this way with Squirrel, as he wanted a child of his own so badly he couldn’t risk letting anyone see that longing. That pain. Just like her.

Something good and warm settles in her chest. Jon might not love her, but she knows with all she is that he can’t wait to be a father, and that matters so much more.

* * *

* * *

They were talking about him (laughing at him). Jon knows it. There's no bleeding way Meera doesn't know what happened last night for women talk and now they’re exchanging looks the way girls do and he doesn’t know whether it’s good or bad. They’re smiling, though. Smiles are good--and giggles can be too, he supposes. And Sansa did peak twice and wanted it again, so he has nothing to worry about, really. She left his chamber satisfied.

Sitting a bit straighter, Jon reaches for the bowl of hard-boiled eggs and puts two on his plate before rolling a third against the table so that it cracks.

“Was Shadow all right?” Sansa asks.

“Yes. A bit grumpy with me, but she’s fine.”

“You can’t have gotten much sleep.”

“No,” he says, peeling the egg. “Just need to eat something, then I’ll go back to her. I think she needs some time with me.” He offers a quick smile. “If that’s all right.”

“You’re free to come and go as you please, Jon.”

He gives her another quick smile and a nod before he shoves the whole egg into his mouth and starts cracking the next.

“Sansa told me you live beyond the Wall,” Meera says.

“Aye. I’m building a cabin by the Iselind, the big river running from the Iron Mountains down to…”

Jon trails off, the hand rolling his second egg against the table slowing to a stop. He should tell them about his suspicions--both Sansa and Meera deserve to know--but what if he’s wrong? Last time he asked Sansa to keep a secret, it didn’t turn out particularly well.

“What is it?” Sansa asks.

“Nothing.”

“You told me you were far north, but you weren’t in your cabin. Not for weeks. Were you in the mountains?”

Jon closes his eyes with a sigh.

“What were you doing in the mountains?”

“If I tell you, do you promise you won’t do _anything_ without discussing it with me first?”

Sansa huffs out a breath. “It depends on what you tell me.”

“I need you to promise.”

“I promise.”

“And do you mean it this time?”

“I suppose you just have to take a leap of faith, Jon. If you have any in me at all.”

Jon clenches his jaw and looks away to avoid her unwavering gaze. There's not one ounce of him that wants to speak now--now about _anything_ \--but he should say something. If he stays silent, he risks Sansa taking matters into her own hands and that's always a gamble. So he clears his throat and tells them about the secret valley in the mountains where a peaceful group are building a community and learning how to hunt, fish, gather, and grow what they can in the secluded area. He mentions no names, nor where one can find the trail leading up the mountain, but he does tell them about his traveling companions and meeting them in the godswood.

“We couldn’t bring the wagon up the mountain. So they finally removed the canvas so we could make bundles and carry it on our backs. It was nothing but weirwood branches and twigs. I still don’t know what they’re for, but this man who invited me to stay? He fought for us. For the Starks. In all the wars. And when the wars were over, he stayed in King’s Landing. Didn’t you say people started to worship Bran?”

“They did. Not a lot of them, but they did. Some of his guards as well--and some of them were northmen.”

“There might’ve been former members of the Kingsguard in the valley, but I wouldn’t know. I’m not initiated so they don’t tell me much. I do know this, though.” Jon taps the inside of his wrist. “They have three dots, right here. Different colors. It seems to depend on what roles they have.”

“Three dots; three eyes,” Meera says. “I think you’re right. The Three-Eyed Raven is involved. Has gathered himself a nice little cult.”

“I don’t think they’re a--”

“Don’t be fooled. He’s not Bran. Brandon Stark died years ago in a cave. He’s just a husk now with the Three-Eyed Raven inside.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jon says. “There’s some Bran in him still. I’d like to go back to the mountain. Not today,” he adds, looking at Sansa, “but some day. I need to--”

A knock on the door interrupts their conversation. Maester Wolkan carries a raven scroll inside which Sansa reads at the table before excusing herself. Meera follows her with her eyes until the door is closed, and then returns her attention to Jon. 

“I lost my brother because of the Three-Eyed Raven. And I lost my dearest friends in the world. Summer, Bran, and Hodor. They all died because of him. _I_ almost died. He doesn’t care about people. We’re just a means to an end to him. If you go up that mountain, you better be really careful and you better be prepared to fight. Sansa has lost too much already. If she loses you too... She's _pregnant_."

“I really don’t think they’re up to something bad.”

“And I’m to trust _your_ judgment?”

Jon tilts up his chin. “You have a problem with me?”

“Of course I have a problem with you. The things I’ve heard about Jon Snow…” Meera shakes her head. “Sansa is my sister. Not by blood, no, but by choice. Hurt her and I hurt you.”

“I have no intention of hurting her.”

“Intentions mean nothing. Actions,” she says, emphasizing the word by tapping her finger on the table, “that’s what matters and I have little reason to believe you’ll do what’s right.”

Jon’s nostrils flare with a calming intake of breath. “You don’t know me.”

“Prove me wrong, then. I would much rather like you than distrust you.”

She snatches a plum from a fruit basket and sticks it into her mouth before wrapping the child to her body with a stretch of fabric and leaving Jon to finish his breakfast in peace. If peace is the right word for staring at a tapestry of a dream while chewing on food that tastes like bark and stewing over Meera’s words. Over her threats. As if he’ll hurt Sansa. Only one of them is at risk of getting hurt by their arrangement, and it’s not her. She’s never felt strongly enough about him for that to be possible.

Once his plate is cleared, he goes back to Shadow. She doesn’t need even half as much sleep as he does, but she does need care and even though his aching body and tired neck longs for riding to the mere and lying down in the soft grass and drifting off while she grazes, he leads her out to the fields surrounding Winterfell. There he frees her of saddle and reins, and pulls out his grooming tools from the saddlebags and takes care of her, bonds with her. He’s already apologized profusely for leaving her exhausted and alone at the Wall, and now he murmurs more apologies, calling her sweet lady and petting her muzzle and giving her cuddles as well. 

Once he’s done and has stretched out his back and rolled his neck and shoulders, he turns around to lead Shadow back to the stables. Meera is watching him from the battlements. He lifts his hand in a wave she acknowledges with a nod, and when he returns to the courtyard, she’s waiting for him there with a quiver hanging at her hip and a bow hanging on her back.

“Sansa says you’re a good fighter.”

“Oh, she has something good to say about me?”

Meera rolls her eyes. “What’s your weapon of choice?”

“Don’t have one. Not anymore. I hunt to eat, that’s all. My fighting days are over.”

“Hunt with what--bow and arrow?”

“Aye, sometimes.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Sansa will be busy with petitions the rest of the morning. I need to practice. Wouldn’t mind some company. Or competition.” She gives him a look-over. “How’s your aim?”

While he expects her to shoot him as many questions as she shoots arrows, Meera observes more than she talks. His technique, aye, but more so his reactions when he hits or misses. She seems especially interested in his reactions when she does better than him (which she does often), but Jon doesn’t mind losing to a woman. He doesn’t mind losing at all if he knows he did the best that he could. But this is not his best. The past few days have left him exhausted and unfocused. The busy courtyard distracts and irks when he’s used to sneaking through quiet woods or across desolate moorlands. Soon his nerves are pulled as taut as the bowstring and her watchful eye does nothing to soothe them. But five years ago he got good practice at minding his temper and he minds it now too, ignoring the simple mistakes he makes and giving as good as he gets whenever Meera taunts him playfully.

Twice Meera’s companion stops by, the baby tied to her chest now, to check in before continuing her stroll around the grounds to keep the baby napping. The third time she stops by, the child has woken up and wants the breast, and Jon sneaks off to watch Sansa at work.

The throne he noticed in her council room has now been carried into the Great Hall. She wears a crown too, of two direwolves meeting at her brow. By her right side sits Maester Wolkan, to whom she turns most often when in need of advice, and on her other side sits a man who documents it all into a ledger.

It’s with a mix of emotions Jon watches her work. Pride, certainly, for she listens carefully to her subjects, communicates with her advisers, and rules sensibly and fairly. There’s relief too that he’s not the one who has to sit up there and be responsible for hundreds of thousands of people and their well-being. But there’s envy as well, just a smidge, for she gets to rule in peacetime while he had to prepare an exhausted kingdom for the most important battle Westeros had ever known. Had he ruled at a different time, perhaps the crown wouldn’t have felt like a burden.

(Protecting always was easier than defending.)

At noon, as the three of them eat a light meal together in the small dining chamber, their conversation leads back to where it was interrupted. Sansa wants to know more about the valley and Jon tells her as much as he can without betraying Ronne and the others.

“They’re peaceful, as far as I can tell."

“Peaceful for now,” Sansa says. “I can’t afford to make assumptions. I have a kingdom to protect.”

“I know they’re odd, but they might just want to live a simple life after all the shit they’ve been through since King Robert died. As long as they stay up there, no one can force them to pick up swords and shields and fight in yet another war because no one rules them.”

“Someone must rule them. That’s how people work. Someone always steps up--and not always the person who should.”

“I think it’s Bran,” Jon says, “and I don’t believe Bran would hurt us.”

“No, nor do I. He might’ve changed, but he’s still my brother. I trust him.”

“Are you sending someone up there?” Meera asks. “I’d offer, but I can’t leave Wylis.”

“I should, shouldn’t I.”

Jon and Sansa’s eyes meet across the table; they’re thinking the same thing, he knows. If she sends someone up there, it has to be someone she trusts, someone who can lie and infiltrate, someone who won’t make matters worse. Someone the people of Korpsilmae Valley already know.

But Jon doesn’t offer and she doesn’t ask. She only says she’ll think about it, and Jon ducks his head to hide a smile. She doesn’t want him gone, then. She wants him here with her and their unborn baby. She needs him here to protect them--but how good a job would he do when he hasn’t trained in five years and even gone out of his way to avoid a fight?

In his haste to leave, Longclaw was left in a crevice in the mountains where he hid it shortly after his arrival. But an untrained man shouldn’t use a sharp blade anyway, and the armory is full of sparring swords. He grabs one to feel its weight. It’s heavier than he remembers. He adjusts his grip. His hands are damp. He wipes them on his breeches. Adjusts the grip again. Slips back into a fighting stance his body remembers on its own. Breathes out slowly through his mouth, lifts the sword and swings. His heart beats as if he’s carried logs all morning and a cold sweat creeps up his spine. He twirls the sword. Lets out another slow breath. His heart now beats so hard he can hear it. A booming in his ears. Like buildings crumbling, like panicked people stampeding through a collapsing city, like screams and fire and terror. He can’t breathe. The sword drops to the ground with a clatter. Gasping for air, Jon leans forward with his hands on his knees until the ringing in his ears stops. Then he bolts from the armory and finds Shadow. They ride until he feels as one with the horse, his breathing and heartbeats a familiar, dependable rhythm, his body an extension of strong legs that can run for miles and carry him to water and silence.

They spend the rest of the day there, at the mere. Out of habit, he scouts the surrounding fields for the perfect place to build a cabin, even looks for trees to cut down and only catches himself when he grabs his dagger to mark them. It is a lovely place, though. Close to Winterfell and yet far away enough that the din of the courtyard or even Wintertown never reaches him. The mere would provide him with fish and he could shoot birds too.

If Winterfell ever feels crowded, he could live right here, close to the water. He picks up the dagger and marks a few trees after all, just to see how it feels. Once he's done, his growling stomach calls for supper, and he finds a good stick, fashions himself a spear, and gets himself some fish.

He’s building a fire to grill the catch when someone clears their throat behind him. He’s up in an instant, dagger drawn, heart in his throat. Meera backs away with her hands held up, palms facing him.

Jon lowers his dagger with a relieved exhale. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people you don’t know,” he says and sinks back down on his haunches. "You might end up hurt."

“You missed supper.”

“Is she upset?”

“Would you care if she was?”

“Of course I would.”

Meera hums. “Why are you out here?”

“I’m used to being alone.”

“I understand. Winterfell can be a lot.”

“Aye.”

“Do you want company or should I leave?”

“There’s fish for two, if you’re still hungry.”

“I could eat. Breastfeeding leaves you hungry. Remember that. She doesn’t want to use a wetnurse. You better keep her fed.”

Jon smiles. “I’ll remember.”

Watching the sunset color the sky in hues of the woman waiting for him in a place he may or may not call home once more, they eat in a surprisingly comfortable silence and he can’t help but think that under different circumstances he and Meera would get along well. He can’t help but think that her sharing his fish and his silence means she’s already seen enough to think he might prove her wrong after all. That it's a promise of her approval. And if that's the case, if her attitude was that easy to change, Sansa must've had something good to say about him, after all.

* * *

* * *

Sansa picks up a skein of goat wool the color of sand and strokes it against her cheek. It’s expensive, from Essos, and so much softer than even the finest lambswool Westeros has to offer. Perfect for a baby’s sensitive skin.

It’s still early summer and the nights are cool enough in the drafty castle that she likes a fire in the evening. She likes the crackle too, the way it’ll always remind her of better times when the castle was full of wolves and the future looked as bright as the past, and settles down by the heart to make a slipknot and start casting on.

She’s on the fifth row of double moss stitches when there’s a knock on the door. It’s him. It has to be. 

She puts down her work and throws a look in the full-length mirror. She’s in a simple night-gown and robe, her hair falling in loose waves and framing a pale face. Nothing enticing about it--and there shouldn’t be. Meera was right. Sansa should end things before they become messy.

She bites her lip and pinches her cheeks gently to get some color nonetheless.

Not that he seems to care. His eyes take in the room, not her. A room in which he was never allowed as a boy and has only entered a handful times as an adult, when her nightmares drew him to her door and he stayed in the doorway until she fell back asleep. Now, though, he can take his time really looking--and he does. He even passes the mirror and startles at his own reflection, his hand smoothing over wild hair and a bushy beard before skimming down his chest and stomach. He's more slender now than the day he left King's Landing. His old clothes are a touch too big, and his current clothes a touch too worn. He needs something new. She'll make him something new herself. An image of her taking his measurements appears in her mind, an image of him standing before her with his arms held out while her hands move over his body and, no. No. She'll have someone else make him something new.

“What are you knitting?” he asks as they sit down by the fire.

“A baby blanket. Just a simple one. I don’t knit as often as I’d like anymore. I’m using it to warm up.”

“Looks good to me,” he says with a smile.

“Jon,” she says, lowering the knitting to her lap, “I'm glad you stopped by. We need to talk about yesterday, what we did.”

His smile slips. “You’ve changed your mind again.”

“I worry that we're complicating things that are in no need of being complicated.”

She pauses to let him protest; Jon only looks at her with dark unfathomable eyes.

"I know we both have needs, and it's not as if we can turn to someone else, and I did enjoy it and..." She licks her lips, eyes dropping to his mouth. Stop. _Focus_. "I don't know. What do you think?"

“If that’s how you feel.” He grabs the armrests, the muscles of his forearms playing beneath tan skin, and gets to his feet. “Good night, then.”

“I didn’t say you had to _leave_. I wouldn’t mind some company while I knit.”

“Yeah? Thought you wanted my cock not me.”

She jolts at the rude word, a flush creeping up her cheeks. “That was… verbal sparring.”

“Oh, _that’s_ what you call it.”

She purses her lips to suppress a smile. “Can I at least mend your tunic for you before you leave? There’s a hole in the seam. It’s driving me mad.”

"Is it, now." Jon sits back down and leans over the armrest, speaking in a low voice that makes her stomach swoop, “The hole in the seam isn’t going anywhere. And you’re a queen not a laundress. You just want me to take my tunic off.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says, cheeks warm.

“I have to since you’re not doing it.”

“You want me to tell you you’re irresistible?”

“I wouldn’t mind it.”

“I think I have fed your vanity quite enough for one lifetime. I wouldn't want your head to explode. Take off your tunic.”

“Remember what I said about you ordering me about?”

“All right. _Please,_ Jon, take off your tunic so I can mend it for you. It won’t take a moment.”

A smile dances on his lips and something like triumph dances in his eyes and she hates how quickly she lost this hold on him, this way of disarming him with her brazen behavior, and how quickly he learned how to use it himself. She hates how much he enjoys it (and she loves it too, just a bit).

When he pulls off his tunic, she leaves the chair and finds her sewing kit without throwing him a single look. When he hands her the garment, she keeps her eyes locked on her work and absolutely does not watch how the light of the hearth plays over his sun-kissed skin. She doesn’t notice that he was paler last time he visited, and doesn’t imagine him pulling his hair back in a bun and getting to work in the mountains half-naked and strong until his body is slick with sweat. She definitely doesn’t imagine him bathing in a cool mountain spring afterwards and inviting her to join him.

Once she’s done with the mending, there’s a dull throbbing between her legs better left ignored.

She hands him the tunic. “ _Now_ you can leave, if you must.”

“Can I say goodnight to the baby first?”

“Yes, of course.”

While he stays in the chair, she removes her robe and positions herself between his knees. 

“Can I?” he asks, pinching the hem of her long nightgown.

Keeping her eyes on the window, she nods. Slowly, Jon pulls the nightgown up up up until it’s bunched at her waist. Her hands replace his to hold up the fabric, while his hands move to cup her belly.

“Goodnight, sweet boy,” Jon whispers. "Can I kiss your belly?"

"You can do whatever you like," she murmurs, only half-aware of the words spilling from her lips.

He breathes out a quiet chuckle, breath hot against her skin. Then his lips press against her, right below her belly button, in the softest of kisses. Her eyes flutter closed, the throbbing between her legs not so dull anymore. Another kiss and she has to bite her lip not to moan. Oh, what’s _wrong_ with her. He’s saying goodnight to their unborn child while she’s so wanton she can’t help but wish he’d tug off her smallclothes and kiss her lower and lower until her knees buckle.

When his lips and hands disappear and her nightgown falls down to cover her body again, she almost groans with frustration.

“Goodnight, Sansa,” he says and turns around to leave.

She follows him, hand already reaching out to touch, to grab, to pull back, before she realizes what she’s doing and stops. He’s at the door now and this is for the best. He should leave. If they keep doing this one of them will end up hurt and it won’t be him. No matter how careful Sansa is, there’s always a risk that she'll get confused again. 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Jon says, hand on the handle. “There’s a hole in my breeches too. Never got around to getting that fixed.”

Sansa swallows. “Where?”

Jon moves a few steps closer. “Right here,” he says, pointing at his knee. “Does that drive you mad too?”

His eyes sparkle and she hates him. She hates him so much she can’t stand it and she stalks closer to him, staring down at his stupid pretty face.

“Take off your breeches.”

“Already forgotten what I said about you ordering me about?”

“Not at all.” Sansa moves her fingers to the laces of her nightgown. “Take off your breeches. _Now_.” 

  
  


Afterwards, when they lie side by side in her bed, she feels sated and sleepy and just a little bit empty, as if something’s missing. But that’s just her upbringing playing tricks on her. She was raised to be a lady or a queen consort--and neither should take a lover when a king or a lord can bed every woman he meets without anyone batting an eye. The world is changing, though, and northern ladies take lovers if they like. Why shouldn’t she do the same?

Her and Jon’s coupling was quick and heated and so passionate she knows she’ll have bruises on her hips and he’ll have bite marks on his shoulders. She’s entirely satisfied. Nothing is missing. She had a physical need; he filled it. That’s all. He's not here to make her feel cherished.

“This is a comfortable bed,” Jon says. “Much better than mine. Had I known, I might’ve insisted on getting the Lord’s Chamber after I was crowned, after all.”

There’s a forced levity in his voice, as if to ease an increasingly strained silence where they’re both waiting for her to invite him to stay the night or tell him to leave. That’s what kings do, don’t they? They tell their mistresses to leave. But all Sansa can think of is the fact that Jon has never before lain in this bed. Her mother would’ve never allowed it, not even when he was little and had nightmares or was sick.

Littlefinger always told her she looks like her mother. It’s why he loved her, isn’t it, because she was a young malleable version of the woman who didn’t want him. 

Perhaps that’s why Jon _couldn’t_ love her. Perhaps her mother's ghost always stood between them like an invisible barrier. And now he’s fucked Lady Stark’s daughter in Lady Stark’s bed in a chamber previously forbidden to him. It must have occurred to him. And it must have, somewhere deep inside, made him feel good.

He's not here to make her feel cherished; they're using each other.

“We both know what this is, don’t we?” Sansa asks. “That it’s just…”

“Fucking?”

“You don’t have to be so crude about it.”

“Oh, so you can say fuck before and during, but afterwards it’s crude?”

“I’m a lady, Jon.”

“You’re a queen. With a pretty crown and all.”

“I knew you would tease me about that.”

“Well, it is rather funny, isn’t it."

Sansa sighs. “It was a gift. From Gendry.”

“And so you use it in front of your subjects while Gendry is half a world away.”

“Yes, I was wrong. Is that what you want to hear? A crown has its purposes. And I rather like it."

“I like the wolves. Didn’t know he was that artistic.”

Sansa says nothing; Jon doesn’t need to know it was her own foolish design.

“I still can’t believe he has bastards,” Jon says.

“He’ll have many more before he grows old. He’s a man--and most men don’t turn down willing women.”

She waits for Jon to comment, to carry on the conversation, but he falls back into a silence that stretches on and on. She glances at him through the corner of her eye and sees tension in his jaw and the pale press of his lips, as if he took it as an insult.

 _It wasn’t a jab_ , she wants to whisper. _It’s not your fault. I know what it’s like to make yourself hard and numb and let things happen when saying no doesn’t feel like an option._

But she says nothing for Jon never lets her in. Besides his murder and resurrection and the rare mention of Ygritte, Jon never tells her about the things that hurt. He barely tells her anything at all--not even when it concerns her safety or her kingdom or her family. Would he even have told her about the valley unless Meera had sat at the table? Or would Jon’s loyalty to the people of the valley won over his loyalty to Sansa? If he has any.

 _Stop it._ She grew bitter from such thoughts once and she refuses to grow that bitter again.

He has his reasons for not letting her in. She can understand that. She can understand it more than anyone--but that means she can't let him in either.

“You can turn _me_ down, you know that, don’t you?” she says instead and rolls over on her side and rests her cheek in her hand to look at him. “If you’re just indulging me because I’m carrying your child, then I don't want to do this.”

“I’m not,” he says to the ceiling. 

“I might’ve found that more convincing had you looked at me when you said it.”

Jon’s chest rises and falls with a deep breath. Then he turns his head and looks at her. “I’m not indulging you. I enjoy this too.”

“I don’t _ever_ want you to feel as if you can’t say no.”

“I don’t feel that way."

“But if it changes, if this stops feeling good, will you say something?"

“I will. I promise. If you promise the same."

"I do. I promise."

They don’t seal that promise with kisses or soft touches or any sort of physical affection. And when she shivers from the draft flowing over her damp body, she ignores the impulse to curl into him and seek his warmth. Instead she leaves the bed, puts on her robe, and tells him she’d like to wash herself and go to bed--and Jon dresses and leaves without protest.

When she lies down beneath the coverlet alone, she doesn't allow herself to linger on what was said nor pick it apart. That must stop. It's not their actions which complicate things but her overthinking their every moment together. Their reasons don't matter. This is an arrangement. A mutual give and take. A joining of bodies and nothing else. As long as they remember that, it will work.


	15. Cold Mornings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: contains some NSFW situations and language because these two enjoy banging one another, but it’s not proper smut

“I can’t wait to feel him kicking,” Jon says, his mustache tickling her belly.

When he looks up at her, the love for their child still shines in his eyes. The happiness, the tenderness. She wanted this once. Dreamed of it so often it made her heartsick. But in her dreams he loved her too, not just their child, and she has to look away.

She cries far too easily now.

After murmuring goodnight and even nuzzling her stomach, he returns to his side of the bed. To the _other_ side of the bed. Where he just lay. She murmurs a goodnight too and leaves his chamber for her own where she cleans herself absentmindedly, dresses in a more sensible nightgown than the one she wore for him, and goes to bed alone.

She doesn’t feel empty. That hollowness in her chest is the contrast, that’s all. One moment nothing exists but their bodies and she’s soaring from pleasure, and the next… How can it feel like anything but crashing?

With a sigh, she flings the coverlet aside and fetches her knitting. She learned long ago that when her mind won’t quiet enough to let her sleep, doing something is better than tossing and turning. The baby blanket is coming along nicely. Tonight they spent the evening with Meera and Wylis. While Jon and Meera played cards, Sansa knitted and listened to them talking about the time they almost met at Craster’s Keep. Hardly a pleasant topic and yet it was one of the nicest evenings she can remember having in quite a while.

A noise comes from the other side of the wall. Sansa lowers her knitting and cocks an ear. A door opens and closes when no other room in this hallway is occupied except hers and Jon’s. For a moment she listens to see whether he received company, but everything is silent so she lays the knitting aside and walks over to the window. Night has settled over the courtyard, braziers and torches burning like stars scattered across the dark. She wouldn’t even have seen Jon had he not crossed a pool of light before slinking back into the shadows.

Maybe he’s checking in on his horse--or taking her out one last time before he goes to bed. He’s not leaving. While he was still softening inside her, they made plans for tomorrow morning. Intimate plans. He even told her she can come right. He wouldn’t leave. 

Still, Sansa stays awake, knitting and checking the window and listening for his door until her eyes droop. All without Jon returning.

  
  


After a fitful sleep, she replaces her nightgown with a robe and knocks on Jon’s door before pushing it open, half-expecting to find an empty room again. But he’s there, mussed hair and all, blinking groggily at her and holding up the coverlet so she can join him. 

The early morning casts its blue-gray light and damp air between the slats of the shutters. With the hearth dead and no candles lit, a raw chill permeates the room. She has gooseflesh even before she drops the robe on the floor and dives into bed to snuggle under sleep-warm linen. But the linen are as cold as the room and his feet are colder still. And when he grabs her around the waist and pulls her atop him, she can’t help but gasp for his hands are cold too.

As if he just came in after spending hours outdoors.

No. He wasn’t out all night. He didn’t just return to bed and pretend to be asleep when she showed. He let the hearth die during the night and grew cold along with the room.

She’s been lied to and betrayed too many times and it's left her paranoid.

* * *

“Are you going to be all right?” 

They’re walking arm in arm through the godswood, Meera and her. One last morning stroll together before Meera mounts her horse and rides off with Wylis and her companion. One last stroll before Sansa is left with no one to use as a shield between her and Jon.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’ve seen you together now. How you interact. He’s attentive. When you were cold, he got you a blanket and fed the fire. When you were hungry, he got us cakes from the kitchen. Once you started yawning, he was the first one to suggest we call it a night. Little things like that. And he looks at you a lot. Quite fondly too.”

“I’m carrying his child. That’s all that is.”

“The thing I can’t figure out is whether you truly believe that of him, or whether you think so little of yourself you assume no one would ever want you for you.”

Lips pressed thin, Sansa looks away. There’s not a single answer to that question she’d like to hear in her own voice.

“I know you don’t want to tell him how you felt once, but maybe you two should talk about how you feel _now_. What if you could be a family? Properly. I know you want that.”

“Not with Jon. Not anymore. He’ll be a wonderful father. I believe that. But a husband?” Sansa shakes her head and smooths her hand down her waist as if to wipe off the memory of cold fingers grasping her. “He’d be _awful_.” 

“Most men would be. And women marry them anyway.”

“Because they don’t have a choice. But we do.”

A statement that usually would've earned her a grin from her friend, but Meera doesn't grin at all. She positions herself in front of Sansa and regards her for a beat before speaking in a soft voice: “I loved Bran, but at the end I didn’t feel appreciated. I didn’t feel seen or heard. I didn’t feel loved. I don’t know if there’s anything left of him and I don’t care anymore. I had to say goodbye. In here.” She presses a clenched hand to her chest. “For me.”

“I already did,” Sansa whispers. “I don’t love Jon anymore. I said goodbye. But now he’s back. And there’s this.” She cups her stomach. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Has he changed at all?”

“Yes. A bit. But it’s not enough.”

“It took you a good while to open up to me. _Really_ open up. You told me things--even horrible things--but the way you said them… It was as if those things had happened to someone else. You weren’t vulnerable. Not for a long time.”

“That was different. I’ve known him my whole life. There’s always been this wall between us and I don’t think he ever wants it to come down.”

“If that’s how you feel,” Meera says, “perhaps it’s time you renegotiate the terms of your arrangement. Before anyone gets hurt.”

Sansa smiles weakly at her, and they return to the courtyard where Jon already waits with Wylis, Meera’s companion, and their horses. He does light up when he sees them--a small quirk of his mouth, a brightness in his eyes--but Sansa doesn’t read anything into it. That’s what she did before, when she foolishly thought her affections were reciprocated and waited for him to take the first step. She knows better now.

* * *

A new sort of bench stands in Sansa’s bedchamber. One with an un-northerly ornate wood frame, a sloping armrest on one side and no armrest at all on the other, a lopsided backrest, and a lavender brocade-covered padded seat that looks plusher even than a feather bed. The belated nameday present arrived from Pentos after traveling across stormier oceans than anticipated by the gifter, a wealthy family Drustan introduced her to when she was trying to solidify trading relationships between the North and Essos.

“They call it a divan,” Sansa says, reading the note that came with the gift. “Apparently, it’s all the rage in Essos.”

“It’s big,” Jon says. “You could easily seat three people in that. You could sleep in it.”

“It look ridiculous. Beautiful but ridiculous.” She backs all the way to the wall to get a better look at how it fits. “It’s eating up the room. I should have it moved. Not that it will look any less ridiculous anywhere else.”

She puts down the note on the table, removes her slippers, and lies down on the divan with her head on the armrest, just to see how it feels.

“Need a pillow?” Jon asks and tucks one under the small of her back when she lifts up her torso. “How’s that?”

Sansa’s eyes slide shut with a content hum. She’s floating on a bed of fluffy summer clouds, her earlier doubts forgotten far far down on the ground. This is better even than the beds in King’s Landing.

“Oh, this is staying,” she murmurs. “I don’t care how out of place it looks. Honestly, I might marry this divan.”

Jon chuckles quietly. Warm hands close around her ankles, lift her feet. The seat beneath her moves as he sits and then her legs are in his lap.

“I wonder if I could make one of these. One that looks a bit more northern.”

“Ah, yes. Jon the Builder.”

“That’s what they call me,” he says, running a thumb along the arch of her foot.

“Do they really?”

“Aye,” he says, laughter in his voice, and starts rubbing her foot properly. “Some do.”

“The cultists?”

“They’re nice people.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

Jons fingers still. “I know I underestimated how destructive Daenerys was and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, believe me, but do you really think I’ll make that mistake twice?”

“You’re going back there, aren’t you.”

She asks it although she already knows the answer. He still hasn’t told her any names, or where this valley is located, or any details that would actually prove useful to her. He still doesn’t let her in, not really. Wants to handle everything on his own. As he always does. His loyalty to them, to _strangers_ , has already grown solid when his loyalty to her always wavers.

“Have to,” he says, quietly, and resumes rubbing her feet. “Left Longclaw up there.”

“Why?”

“I left the valley in a hurry.” He strokes his fingers up the bridge of her feet, under her skirts, along her shins, and over her knees until he finds the bows holding up her stockings. “A woman I’d lain with had sent me a thousand notes telling me I was going to be a father. Longclaw was the last thing on my mind.”

Eyes still closed, Sansa pulls up her skirts to give him better access. “I thought you always wore it.”

He unties the left bow and starts rolling down the stocking. “It’s in the way when I work.”

“So you can build cabins”--she lifts up her leg as he pulls off her stocking--”and you can build stables. Is there anything else you can build?”

“Well,” he says, pulling off the other stocking too, “I can make chairs and tables. And a really good snow cave. Saved my life more than once.”

Sansa hums with pleasure, relaxing from his work-rough hands massaging her calves. She should ask him more about the mountain--she should--but now his hands inch up her thighs and ghost over her smallclothes, touching her gently through the damp fabric in a place she's yet to invite him to kiss. Even though she’s wanted it. Even though she’s dreamed of it. Even though she’s touched herself while thinking of it. She should ask him more about the mountain--she should--but instead she lifts her hips after he's unlaced her smallclothes so he can pull them off. When his hands return to her thighs, massaging, squeezing, caressing, she moans softly and lets them fall open. His breath wafts over the inside of her knee. A kiss follows. Then another and another, all the way up to the valley between her hip and thigh.

“Yes?” he whispers.

“ _Yes_."

And so on a divan from Pentos, Sansa learns that while Jon might not have a gilded tongue, that tongue of his is worth its weight in gold. He sups on her like a starving man and she peaks twice before she can’t take it anymore and pushes him away so she can straddle his lap and reward his good work. She can smell herself on him, knows he’ll leave traces of her scent all over her neck and shoulders. He might not kiss her mouth, but he kisses her everywhere else he can reach, and when he peaks his lips are on her jawline and that’s so close her stomach swoops as if she were staring down a mountain and she jerks her head away and buries it in the crook of his neck before they cross her carefully staked boundaries. She’d get off him too. Put more distance between them. But his hands are still clutching her hips and her thighs are trembling after what they just did and she needs to rest for a moment. Just a small moment of her nose buried in the scent of him.

“Did you like it?” he asks, hoarsely. “What I did.”

“Yes. You’re _very_ good at it.”

“Better than--”

He stops speaking so abruptly she knows it was a slip. A question weighing on his mind he didn’t mean to let out. Before she’s had a chance to reply, he moves her off him and tugs his breeches back on, cheeks flushed from more (she suspects) than just the coupling. And he leaves her so quickly he even forgets to say goodnight to the baby, as if outrunning the shame and trapping it in the room by closing the door behind him.

She doesn’t read anything into that either. He was a bastard for over twenty years before he learned the truth. The need to assert himself, to be as good as the highborn around him (to be better), will never go away. She knows better than to read his need for validation as jealousy.

He _was_ good, though. Really good (better than). And the following day she can think of little else but his mouth on her. By the time he comes to her chamber, she’s so wet from the anticipation she's already slipped out of her smallclothes, and she lays her legs in his lap in a silent invitation.

“Again?” he murmurs, toying with the hem of her skirt. "Tell me."

"Pleasure me."

Shaking his head, he pushes her skirts up to her knees. "Dirtier."

"Make me peak with your mouth."

He places his hands on the insides of her knees and nudges her legs apart. " _Dirtier_ , Sansa."

She sucks in a shuddering breath. "Sup on my cunt."

A wicked grin pulls at his lips as he pushes her skirts up to her waist and descends on her with just as much fervor as last night. Once she’s sated and climbed atop him, bouncing in his lap, he whispers in her ear to tell him he’s good, that he’s better, and she confesses in a breathy voice that she thought about his mouth on her cunt all day, that she was so unfocused and got so wet she had to leave a meeting early, and Jon comes with a muffled groan before she’s even finished praising him. He kisses her this time too. Lazy kisses spread over her throat and collarbone. Nips at her shoulders and earlobes. One press of his lips to the corner of her jaw that makes her heart flutter and stomach churn all at once.

“Were you telling the truth,” he whispers. “About the meeting.”

Despite it all, she can’t help but blush. “I did. I even tried to find you, but I couldn’t.”

“I was out with Shadow. If I’d known, I would’ve stayed home. Tomorrow? Maybe you could…”

He dances his fingers up her spine, up her neck, and buries them in her hair as he cups her head and angles it to put his lips to her ear. Even though he breathes in as if to speak, it takes him a moment to find his voice and she stares out the window while she waits. A summer drizzle is watering the world outside, pattering against the window and spreading cool air into the room. But it’s not from the cold she shivers when he finally whispers his want. It’s something Drustan suggested once too. She declined, then, couldn’t imagine herself in such a position. Felt too self-conscious to climb atop him in the wrong direction, to take him into her mouth while he pleasured her with his. But now, with Jon, she finds herself whispering _yes_ , and when she sneaks into Jon’s cold chamber the following morning, taking such a position feels nothing but arousing. She comes quickly and loudly, his cock muffling her moans, even though she can feel how cold his face is, how cold his hands are, how damp his hair is against her knees, as if he just came in from the rain still falling outside.

It nags at her afterwards, this stealing away in the night, and once she’s flopped down on her back next to him, she runs her fingers over his hair and asks him why it’s so damp.

“Well, you were all over my face. I got sweaty.” He shoots her a lopsided smile and wipes his admittedly shiny forehead. “Didn’t know you got this sweaty.”

“You’ve never done it before?”

“No. Always wanted to but…” He shrugs. “Never had the opportunity.”

“Why not?”

His chest moves with a heavy sigh and he looks away when he speaks. “With Ygritte, it was almost always outside. Something quick beneath the sleeping skins while the others slept, or behind some rocks or behind a tree before we had to run to catch up with the others. And with…”

His lips curl with distaste; she holds her breath and waits for him to continue, to share something that matters. Offer her some of his pain to carry, the way he once helped in carrying hers after she found him again one cold winter day and he wrapped his cloak around her shoulders and listened to her story without judgment. Without even a hint of, " _You should've known better,"_ or _"It's your own fault._ " But Jon only gives her a quick smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

“No,” he says. “I’ve never done it before.”

“Did you like it? Was it what you were hoping for?”

“Aye, I liked it a lot. Did you like it?”

“I did. Never done it before either.”

“No?” His smile grows into a charming thing, sparkling eyes and all. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

She smiles back despite herself. Despite knowing he just successfully derailed the conversation yet again and never answered her truthfully about why his hair is damp. But she didn’t miss that he wanted something with her he’s done with no one else--and never will do with anyone else for they have promised to only lie with one another. This is theirs and only theirs. And he _wants_ her. He might not have wanted her when she loved him, but he wants her now--he wants _Sansa_ \--and her vanity needs feeding too so she keeps fucking him. She fucks him morning and night, pours praise into his ears, tells him his cock feels so good, that he fucks her so good, that his tongue is so good--all while ignoring all the things that aren’t.

She ignores that, in the evenings, when he comes to her room and they settle down on the divan to unwind, his hands always end up wandering whenever she tries having a conversation and before she knows it she’s melting beneath his touch and peaking against his tongue. She ignores how, sometimes, it feels less as if he wants her and more as if he wants her to shut up. She ignores the little voice inside that tells her he only stays at Winterfell because he has a wanton woman throwing herself at him day and night (and that he only wants her because he went without for years). She ignores that he’s always cold in the mornings and still won't offer willingly where he spends his nights. She ignores the impulse to slip someone a coin and ask them to keep an eye on him discreetly.

Jon is not hers to keep. His duty is toward their child. And he is _here_. Despite having nothing to do, despite missing the true North, he always returns after stealing away in the night. He’s doing his duty. (And he never smells of anyone else.)

So she keeps taking her pleasure, even though it hollows her out more and more each time and she goes to bed at night listening to her heartbeats echoing in the cavity her chest has become.

She keeps taking her pleasure, because for one brief moment every morning and every night, she can close her eyes and pretend that she's happy.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Preferring more glorious pursuits, Jon never used to read much before his exile. But when you spend most of your days alone in the wilderness, other people’s words fill the silence and other people’s worlds fill your own. Now, with nothing else to do, he turns to Winterfell’s library, closes his eyes, and runs his fingers over the spines to pick one at random. _Bastard Born_. He breathes out a chuckle and pockets it.

They spend their evenings together on the divan now, him and Sansa. She doesn’t even invite him anymore. He just shows up and sits down next to her to enjoy companionable silence where she often knits and he often sits for not particularly long at all before they end up fucking. Just like she always shows up in his chamber in the mornings and rides him hard and well before leaving to get ready for a new day. Neither ever stays in the afterglow to cuddle. She doesn’t want that--and he’s really good at knowing when he’s not wanted. But despite the distance she maintains between them, there's something growing in that vastness. Tender little sprouts full of promise. As if, if they only continue like this, they'll eventually meet each other halfway and find that they've nurtured something together. Something that will grow strong with time.

Tonight when he shows up at her chambers, however, she’s not there. So he gets his book from his nightstand and reads to pass the time. He’s a whole chapter deeper into the story once she comes. Usually, she lays her legs in his lap as a silent invitation to touch her; tonight, she curls up with her legs tucked under her and her hands clasped in her lap. Right. He turns his attention back to the book and waits for her to either share bad news or ask him to leave.

“I didn’t know you like to read.”

“It’s a new habit.” He flips a page without looking up at her. “Not much else to do beyond the Wall.”

“Where do you get your books?”

“Borrow them from Castle Black.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Am I bothering you? I can be quiet, if you like. That’s what you enjoyed, wasn’t it? Being quiet together.”

Jon sighs. Deeply. “If you have something to say, just say it. I don’t like playing games.”

“I was just in the mood for a chat.”

“You could’ve just said so.” He lays the book on the table and turns slightly toward her. “Go on, then. Talk.”

“You’re such a child.” She picks up her knitting from the basket standing on the floor by the divan. “I got a raven from Gendry. Tormund is on his way home. He’s not stopping by. They’ll sail from Storm’s End to Eastwatch.”

“He must be happy. To return home. I never liked it down south. Doubt he does either.”

“He sounded very happy,” she says over the clicking of the knitting needles moving at an impressive pace. “And you? This is south for you now, isn’t it? Do you miss the true North? The Iselind, building cabins, all that.”

“Sometimes.”

“Why do you do it? You never really told me. You got your pardon. You could’ve done anything you wanted, but you stayed beyond the Wall and built cabins.”

“Why do you knit? It’s not just because it’s practical or expected of you, is it?”

“No. It soothes me. Especially after I started ruling. The work is never-ending, but with knitting or sewing, I start a project and finish it and have something to show for it once I’m done.”

“Well there you go.” He smiles at her. “Same thing.”

“But I _use_ what I knit or sew. Or I give it to someone else. I create with a purpose.”

“So do I. People live in every cabin I’ve built. People who don’t know how to build.”

“Why haven’t you settled down in one yourself?” She turns her work and keeps knitting. “You could still build more cabins.”

Her tone is perfectly conversational and her eyes are trained on her work, but her legs are still tucked under her when they’re usually touching by now and he knows a shrug and a, “ _Didn’t feel like it_ ,” won’t cut it. She’s after something. So he gives her something. A portion of the truth.

“It was something Ygritte said. Building yourself a cabin, finding yourself a woman, living as you please. That it’s a good life. It wasn’t the life for me, but maybe I could give it to someone else.”

Sansa nods slowly, her fingers slowing too. “You’re giving the future you never got to have with Ygritte to her people. That’s lovely. You’re more romantic than I thought.”

Jon exhales through his nose, shaking his head. “That was never my future with her.”

“No?” Sansa’s fingers move quickly again. “What were your plans? You must’ve been together for quite a while. Months? Years?”

Jon shifts in his seat. “Didn’t keep count.”

“And she never talked about your future? That’s rather strange. Most spearwives I’ve met still want husbands and children.”

“She lived in the moment. We were at war. We never talked about after. Think we both knew we’d never have one.”

“If you had, do you think you would have? Settled down with her. Had children with her.”

Jon scrubs a hand over his beard. “What does it matter now?”

“I’m just making conversation.”

He shoots her an exasperated look she doesn’t meet for she’s still staring at her bleeding knitting. “I’ve told you I loved her, that she was a wildling, and that she died in battle. What more do you need to know?”

“I don’t _need_ to know anything. But, the way Tormund talks about you, she was the love of your life, and as far as I know, you’ve never loved another woman. It’s been _years_.”

Jon swallows, regarding her warily. “What are you after?”

“I’m not after anything. I just wonder why you haven’t moved on. It’s not healthy. Maybe if you talked about her it would be easier. What was she like? What did she look like? What--”

“What has Tormund told you?”

Sansa blinks at his sudden interruption. “Not much. Mostly memories. _His_ memories. Because, unlike you, he actually talks about the people he loved and lost.”

"And you do?"

"I have, yes, and it helps. I told Meera all about my family. Even you."

"Aye, I know you told her all about me."

Sansa looks at him, carefully calm. "What did she say?"

"Nothing. I could just tell you'd told her all sorts of unflattering things."

"Yes, I might've vented because I felt alone and lonely and abandoned by _everyone_. But we're not talking about me. We're talking about you. You and _Ygritte_."

Jon’s nostrils flare with a loud intake of air. “According to Ygritte’s culture, we were married. We were married and I lied to her and I betrayed her and I left her. She chose me--and I chose the Watch. So, no, Sansa. Had Ygritte not been shot by the boy I took as my steward because he thought he was saving me, had she not died in my arms, had she _lived_ , I don’t think we would’ve settled down and had children.” He grabs his book and stands, glaring down at her. “I think she would’ve _hated_ me.”

Sansa has the good sense of looking contrite, all pale as snow with the pink of shame blooming on her cheeks, and opens her mouth to offer him platitudes or apologies or something else he has no interest in receiving.

He leaves before a single word has left her lips.

  
  


* * *

* * *

Sansa never hears his door opening and closing, doesn’t bother going to the window. She knows he’ll ride off with Shadow and do whatever it is he does every night. Instead she keeps working on the blanket while picking apart their conversation like she rips up the knitting when she loses count and purls when she should’ve knitted and knits when she should've purled for several rows, and watches it all unravel in her lap.

She’d forgotten. It was something Tormund said in his raven that stirred an old memory and it all clicked.

He’d found love in the form of a red-haired maid at Storm’s End. Kissed by fire, he said, and that’s when Sansa remembered. Ygritte was kissed by fire too, just like Tormund and Squirrel.

Just like Sansa.

_“You could have one of those, kissed by fire and everything, if you give your cousin what she wants.”_

That’s what he told Jon. If Jon lay with Sansa, he could have a son or daughter who look like the children he would’ve had with Ygritte had they gotten their happily ever after.

Sansa could barely breathe when she walked to her chamber from the rookery. How she could keep her composure throughout the interrogation, she doesn't know. It’s almost impressive, really, how she didn’t start crying when Jon got antsier the more she prodded. It’s almost impressive how she doesn’t even cry now, how she manages to fall asleep even though she feels so hollow it numbs her. In her dreams, she sees Jon wrapping her hair around his fingers and breathing it in and pretending. She sees Jon holding their newborn kissed-by-fire child and seeing another woman's face in their features. She sees Jon fucking her and thinking a different name when he peaks. She sees him fulfilling a long time fantasy by using the next best thing. A placeholder. That’s what she is, what she’ll always be. Of course he’d never want her for her. Not even to fuck.

When she wakes, Sansa doesn’t pull on a robe and pad to Jon’s bed. No, she burrows deeper under the coverlet and waits dully for morning to come all on her own.

She’ll never lie with him again.


	16. Echoes of A Broken Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: NSFW - not proper smut but sort of the same heat level as the previous chapter

“Do I look like her?”

Jon lowers the fork that was halfway to his mouth; Sansa stares down at her baked fish. It’s the first thing she’s said to him all day. Even though he made sure to be back before daybreak, she never showed up this morning. Too give her the space she clearly needed, he spent the day with Oskar, helping out in the stables, grooming and exercising horses. At noon, they settled down on a log and ate ham, bread, and cheese while discussing what area could work well as a horse pasture. A rather good day, all things considered, and after washing the stable-scent off him and changing clothes, he headed to supper feeling hopeful that things could return to their strange kind of normal. But despite eating for two, she’s picked at her food and said nothing. Until now.

“Who?"

"Don't play dumb." She lifts her winter-cool gaze. “Kissed by fire.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But maybe I look _enough_ like her. Sometimes, when we lose someone we love, we find a replacement. An echo of what we lost.”

He lays down the fork and sits back in his chair, watching her with a growing unease.

“Littlefinger loved my mother. After Father died, he wanted her. But then she was murdered and there I was with my red hair, my Tully blue eyes. Not the spitting image, but similar _enough_. A replacement. An echo.”

Gaping, Jon shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “That’s not…”

“So you don’t think of her when were intimate?”

“No. I _never_ have. Never.”

“Then what do you think about?”

“That it feels good. Why? What do _you_ think about?”

“Nothing. I don’t think about anything. I just fuck."

She cuts herself a bit of fish and chews it primly and for twice as long as he does with the morsels he’s shoved into his mouth. She chews primly and she wears the icy mask he knows well by now. The one behind which she hides her insecurities.

“I have moved on,” he says, quietly. “I did years ago. I never think about her anymore unless something reminds me of her. And you don’t. You really don’t.”

“So those women you turned down, the wildlings, it wasn’t because you still want her?”

“No, it was…” He swallows, clenching his hands under the table while warding off the memories forcing themselves to the forefront of his mind. “I didn’t want to risk having a bastard.”

“That went well.”

With an almost-smile, she lays one hand on her belly while moving a forkful of fish to her lips with the other.

“At least you’ll legitimize him.”

“Yes. Our son will be a Stark.” She does smile then, the ice melting off her, and nods at his tunic. “You need new clothes. You should make an appointment with my seamstress. She’s next to the maester’s chamber.”

“I’d like to pay for it myself. The clothes.”

“You have coin?”

“A bit. Saved up some over the years. Found a gold nugget in the Iselind once.”

“Oh, that’s good to know. I’ve been meaning to discuss opening mines in the true North with Tormund. They would belong to the Free Folk, of course, but the North would finance it. Get our share. You know the land and the people much better than I do...” She regards him for a beat. “I have some paperwork I’d like to get done before I retire. Perhaps we could discuss this further tonight? In my chambers. You could be of help, if you want.”

“On the divan?”

Sansa presses her lips together, but her eyes glimmer with something he’d like to call fondness. “If you can keep your hands to yourself for one evening.”

“As if you don’t like it when I--”

She interrupts him by getting to her feet. “Tonight I only want to talk. We _can_ do that, can’t we?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling softly. 

Once she’s left, he finishes his supper quickly and heads to the royal seamstress. She’s yet another unfamiliar face to him. A pleasant one, though, with many laugh lines and big teeth she shows often with friendly smiles as she pulls him into the room to take measurements at once while calling him “such a pretty lad” and chattering about how fun he’ll be to dress in something handsome and how she can't wait to get started.

“I just want something simple,” Jon says. “That’s good enough for me.”

She tuts, shaking her head, and steers him by the upper arms to stand in front of a full-length mirror. “You need something for feasts, at least. Her Grace told me you might attend some in the future.”

Jon smiles at that. “She did, did she?”

“Let’s see… You do look good in black.” She throws a sample of fabric over his shoulder. “Or something red.” Another fabric over his shoulder. “That’s m’lord’s colors, no? Red and black.”

“No. I don’t want that.”

“No.” She sucks in air through her teeth and removes the samples. “You’re right. Best not. Shouldn't remind people of that awful House. No offense, m'lord." She curtsies quickly. "Perhaps something Dornish? Her Grace got so many bolts from King Drustan for her nameday. You sort of have the look, don’t you? That dark curly hair. Dark eyes. Dark beard. Like the king himself.”

Jon’s stomach flips, a cold sensation slithering up his spine and spreading across his body until sweat sucks the linen of his tunic against his skin.

“And with this tan of yours...” She lays a swath of dark blue brocade over his shoulder, holding it up to his cheek. “Mm. This is very flattering. Very…”

Her voice melts into an incomprehensible drone. The rest of the room fades into murky gray. All Jon sees his is reflection. How little he looks like the man Sansa knew. How negatively she reacted when he trimmed his beard and his hair and wore his old clothes. When he looked like himself. But now… Now she can pretend that he’s someone else. Someone he looks like just _enough_.

He’s the echo of the man she loved and couldn’t have. And now she carries a child in her belly who’ll look like the one she couldn’t keep. 

Someone broke her heart. He’d forgotten. Lost in the headiness of fucking morning and night, he forgot that someone broke her heart and it wasn’t the Beetle and he didn’t think it was Drustan, but maybe it was. Maybe she hasn’t been entirely truthful about her relationship with him. Maybe she’s been forced to rewrite the narrative of their history because Drustan is the King of the Six Kingdoms and she’s the Queen of the North and their relationship must remain amicable.

Is she aware? Did she ask about Ygritte because it’s what she herself is doing? Fucking someone while thinking of someone else. Someone who looks just similar enough to be a placeholder.

Is that why she wants him so badly?

Is that why she won’t kiss him?

Her heart still belongs to another and it would feel like cheating. It’s too intimate. It would break the illusion.

He flees the Great Keep, finds Shadow, and rides and rides and rides. Back to the Iselind, he thinks. Back to solitude. Back to the mountain. Anywhere but Winterfell. Anywhere but close to _her_.

Her and their child.

Jon pulls at the reins, slowing Shadow to a trot. He has a child on the way. A child who will need him. He can no longer run away whenever things get hard--even if Sansa’s been calling him Drustan in her head. If she has. Maybe she hasn’t. Would she have been so upset about Ygritte if she had done the same herself? Maybe it’s been subconscious. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s a bleeding hypocrite.

He shakes his head to clear it from useless thoughts and questions that do nothing to solve the issue, and rides back to Winterfell. Rides through the night, through another summer rain that doesn’t let up until he’s almost at the gates. He’s soaked through, exhausted, hungry, drags himself up the stairs to the Keep. He’ll change into something dry, grab breakfast, and sleep in the stables--

He sucks in a sharp breath, frozen in the doorway with one foot inside the room and the other outside. She’s sitting on his bed, hands clasped over her little belly hidden beneath a sensible nightgown and an untied dressing robe.

“Where do you go at night?”

“I was… I needed to think.”

“Every night?” She rises to her feet, watching him coolly. “I know you leave your chambers. I know you don’t return until morning. Where do you go?”

He closes the door behind him and walks farther into the room. “Are you spying on me?”

“No. But I’m not stupid. Every morning you’re cold and so is your bed. I can hear your door too. Where do you go?”

“I’m with Shadow.”

“All night?”

“Aye.”

“Doing what?”

“Sleeping.”

“Sleeping. Outside. With your horse.”

“Aye. That’s how I sleep.”

She licks her lips, taking one step closer. “That’s how you _sleep_?”

“Aye. It’s how I’ve slept every bleeding night since I got her. That’s what she’s used to. I can’t leave her alone in a box all night. Especially not after I left her at the Wall.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was anything to tell. You said I can come and go as I please.”

She pulls the robe tight around herself as if it were armor and lifts her chin. “Are you spending time with someone else?”

“ _What_? You think I would do that?”

“I didn’t! But I don’t understand why you would lie about sleeping next to your horse!”

“I haven’t lied. I just didn’t tell you.”

“‘It’s sweat,’” she says, mocking his northern burr. “Was that not a lie?”

“Why do you care where I sleep anyway? It’s not as if we share a bed.”

“Do you _want_ us to share a bed?”

“It is weird, isn’t it?” He stalks closer until there’s so little space between them he can feel the heat of her against his rain-chilled body. “Aye, we both know what this is, but this is not how people usually do it. People kiss and cuddle, they don't just sate a need and leave. Doesn’t it feel weird to you? Doesn’t it feel cold?”

“What feels cold is your bed every morning because you haven’t slept in it.”

“Why does it matter where I sleep! I sleep outside with Shadow because I like it! I sleep better! Is that so fucking offensive to you?”

“No! I just wish you would’ve told me! You never tell me anything!”

Jon scoffs. “As if you tell me everything.”

“I have no secrets.”

“No?” He looks up into her eyes, lips curved in a lopsided smirk. “Who broke your heart?”

Sansa’s mouth drops open with a gasp. Even in the scant light of the fresh candles burning on the mantelpiece, he can tell she’s as pale and still as a windless winter morning.

“Who was it, Sansa? Not the Beetle. Drustan? Someone else?”

She closes her mouth and swallows. “I don’t know what you’ve been told but--”

“I haven’t been told anything. I’m not as stupid as you think I am. Someone broke your heart. And I don’t think you’re over him. And that’s why you’re fucking me all the time. To forget. To _pretend_. So who was it?”

“No one.”

“Stop lying. Who is he? I think I have a right to know."

“It’s...” Her voice fades to a whisper. “It’s private.”

“Oh, that’s private, is it? I can’t have my privacy, but you can. I can’t wear a crown, but you can. I should move on, but you don’t have to. There’s a word for that, isn’t there.”

She averts her eyes, the heat of shame painting her cheeks red.

“Do you think about him when you fuck me?”

Blinking rapidly, she lifts her gaze to meet his. “Don’t come to my chambers. I will no longer come to yours.”

He doesn’t watch her leave. The moment the door closes behind her, he rummages through the drawers of his desk until he finds the sheers and a silver tray that’ll work as a looking glass. Then he opens the shutters and, in the growing daylight, cuts and cuts until the wildling gives way to Jon Snow.

* * *

* * *

A courier carrying a three-page letter arrives in the afternoon. By now the summer sun has dried the rain, and Sansa settles down in the shade of the heart-tree to read in peace. It tells of an easy pregnancy and a difficult birth, of a baby boy named for a barely-remembered brother, of the first few emotional days of motherhood. And in between the lines, in the rare display of vulnerability and strong emotions shared, Sansa reads regret over a lost friendship, and a wish to reconnect.

She leans back against the pale trunk, rests her hands on her stomach. The corset has grown incredibly uncomfortable and removing it a great relief. In a wicker basket tucked under her desk, she keeps her latest sewing project. Something she works on whenever she needs a half hour break from paperwork to clear her head before picking the quill back up. It’s almost done. Just a few stitches left.

After folding the letter and pocketing it, she heads inside.

* * *

“How do I look?”

“Pregnant,” Kari says, smiling softly at her. “And very beautiful.”

Sansa smiles too, watching her reflection in the mirror. Her mother wore something like it when she was pregnant with Rickon, Sansa remembers. A deep blue dress that falls in elegant drapes from the silk ribbon beneath the fishscale-embroidered bust. 

“So it’s finally time.” Kari sniffles, dabbing the corners of her eyes.

“I should ask him first, but yes, I think it is.”

“I’ll fetch him, Your Grace.”

Sansa sits down on the divan and skims through the letter a third time. She’s only seen him once today, from the battlements. Oskar and his father are breaking in the young horses and she heard whispers about the former King in the North helping them and sneaked out for a look. Jon had led a colt out from the courtyard, away from the bustle, and tied him to a pole. And there he was brushing the dirt and dust from the colt's coat, grooming him and petting him and talking to him to gain his trust before, slowly and patiently, introducing the saddle blanket.

She’d rarely seen something so soothing, could almost feel those brushstrokes against her own body, and she returned to work as calmed as the colt.

He never looked up to see her watching him. Never came for the midday meal nor supper. This could continue, she knows, for days and days. They have no true foundation to support them through conflicts. Only the baby keeps them together and, for the baby's sake, they need to do better. To lay that foundation after all. This is a good thing, a needed thing, and yet she's so nervous about being the one to reach out first, she picks up her knitting to find that calm again. The baby blanket is done and now she’s working on a hat. If the seasons keep turning as steadily as they have the past few years, he’ll be here in winter.

When the knock finally comes, her heart beats a little faster. He looks like Jon again, she knows. Like her Jon. Could see it even from the battlements, how neat his beard looked, how he’d gathered his much shorter hair in a bun. But he’s not her Jon. He never was and never will be, and she collects herself and ignores how good he smells and invites him to sit. 

“I received a letter,” she says, laying down her knitting, “from Brienne. Galladon Tarth of Evenfall was born three weeks ago.”

“I’m very happy for her. Give her my best.” He puts his hands on his thighs as if to leave. “Was that all?”

“No. Do you have a moment?”

Jon sighs but nods and relaxes back on the divan.

“It was a very thick letter. Brienne and I… We had a falling out, of sorts. Or we drifted apart, at least. After we got the news about ser Jaime--it was rough. She was inconsolable. And late.”

Jon’s eyebrows rises. “Was she…?”

“No. From the shock and stress, it turned out, but we didn’t know that yet. She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t sleep. I tried talking to her, tried helping. She snapped at me, told me it was my fault... We got a raven from Varys about Euron’s attack. I thought Daenerys would invade the capital, arrest Cersei, and execute her. That monster would finally pay for what she’d done to our family and I would be free and I felt gleeful when we told him. Brienne screamed at me that my glee had provoked him, scared him. That, if not for me, he would’ve stayed and he would’ve lived.”

“She didn’t mean that.”

“No, she didn't. It was grief speaking. Grief and exhaustion. I think she knew he would’ve left her either way. Cersei was pregnant. It was only a question of time. But she needed to blame someone and I’m easy to blame.” Sansa gives a tight smile. “She apologized. I forgave her. But things were never the same after that. Once Bran was elected, she left to serve him. And once he disappeared, she rejected my offer to come back here. We’ve kept in touch. A few ravens a year. But I didn’t attend her wedding. She didn’t attend my coronation. We’ve not seen each other in years.”

“She resented you that much?”

“I always thought she was ashamed. She showed me sides of herself I don’t think she’s shown many people. Sides unbecoming of someone in her position. The letter confirmed my suspicion and now… Well, after someone has reached out or opened up, it’s a good idea to reciprocate.” 

“Yeah,” Jon drawls, nodding slowly.

"I would like to tell Brienne about the baby, but I want your blessing. Because if I tell her, perhaps we should stop hiding this altogether."

With a deep intake of breath, she rises and shakes out her skirts until they drape prettily over her belly. Brow knitted, Jon lifts his head to look at her, his gaze drifting over her body until it stops at her mid-section. Then his brow smooths out and a smile spreads across his face. He always has a smile for their babe.

“You’re not wearing a corset.”

“No, I’m not. And I would like to not put it on again. There are already whispers. The laundress must’ve noticed I don’t bleed. I’m sure your maid has found long red strands of hair on your pillow.”

“And long black ones on yours.” He scoots closer to her and places his hands on her belly. “They’ll all know he’s mine. Your Targaryen cousin you haven’t wed.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if you have enough wealth or power, you can do the most scandalous things as long as you do them with confidence.”

Jon laughs, leaning his forehead against her belly before looking up at her. “Can I write a raven to Sam? I want him to hear it from me. And Davos.”

“Of course.”

“You hear that? You won’t be a secret anymore. Can we celebrate it with a kick?” Jon taps his fingers gently against her belly. “Can you kick for papa?”

Tears fill her eyes; she turns her head to blink them away discreetly. “I think he’s sleeping.”

Jon sighs good-naturedly and shakes his head. “He’s stubborn. I just know it.”

“He would be. Haven’t met a Stark who wasn’t.” She sits back down on the divan and curls up against the armrest. “Hopefully, he’ll be patient too. Like his father. I saw you with the horse today. You were good with him.”

Still smiling, Jon shrugs. “I like horses. We understand one another.”

“I felt very reassured. I made the right choice. You’ll be a wonderful father.”

His smile grows and grows until he’s beaming, a light pink shade blooming on his cheeks. “I hope you’re right.”

She waits for him to offer her something in return, to reciprocate, but Jon stays silent, basking in the validation she gave him. Maybe he did mean it when he said people like her shouldn’t have children. He thinks she’s cold. Her eyes sting. This stupid pregnancy makes her so emotional and she clenches her teeth and picks her knitting back up to distract herself.

“Sansa? You all right?”

“Yes.”

She purls and purls and purls, but the feeling won’t go away and a tear spills over. She wipes it quickly and keeps knitting.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

Exhaling sharply, she drops the knitting in her lap. "You think I'll be a terrible mother. You said it yourself. People like me shouldn’t--”

“I didn’t mean it.” Jon moves closer to her. “I was angry and I thought you were manipulating me and--”

“You thought me capable of that. Of hurting you like that.” She wipes away more tears. “You think I’m awful. Just admit it.”

“I don’t.” He moves closer still and takes her hand. “You’ll be wonderful.”

“But what if I'm not? I can be so cold,” she whispers. "What if I fail him?”

More tears spill over. With a soft, comforting noise, Jon wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, tucks her head under his chin and strokes his hands up and down her back, combs his fingers through her hair, soothing her like he soothed the colt. 

“You won’t fail him,” he murmurs. "You’ll be the best mother he could ever ask for.”

He smells so good, like horse and leather and sun-warm skin. He smells like Jon, like someone who’ll protect her from harm when he’s the one who hurts her. Even though he doesn’t mean to, he’s the one who hurts her in ways no one else has ever hurt her. He wants the baby. He wants his Winterfell dream--or as close to it as he can get. He doesn’t want her, not even as a friend. He never did. This is an arrangement nothing more, nothing less. She must remember.

She pulls away. “I better write that letter. The courier is leaving in the morning.”

Jon’s hand finds her cheek, thumb brushing away her tears. “I’ll write Sam.”

Then he brings her head closer and gives her the softest kiss on her forehead, and she’s weak enough that she leans into it. She’s weak enough that even the smallest display of affection stirs old dreams awake after all, and she squashes them down with another round of reminding herself that she’s nothing but duty to him. An obligation. She might’ve deluded herself once, but she’s not a stupid little girl who never learns anymore. 

She’s a woman and she knows what this is.

Or what it was, rather. Days pass and the intimacy doesn’t return. He’s not _her_ Jon. He’s Jon the Builder, who picks up a hammer and helps in repairing the walkways and building a pasture and a paddock. They don’t spend their evenings together and they don’t spend their mornings together. The only time they see each other is at breakfast and supper when they mostly talk about work. He eats his midday meals with Oskar outside on the field.

Sometimes, though, when she needs air after a two hour meeting or after too much paperwork, she heads outside to watch the progress. Jon often works bare-chested and in breeches that leave nothing to the imagination until he’s slick with sweat and she’s slick with something else. More than once, she’s left the battlements to work out her frustrations in the privacy of her chamber with the poor replacement that are her fingers.

She doesn’t miss _him_ , though. Not really. She doesn’t miss their constant fights or how he always bristles whenever she wants him to open up and let her in. She doesn’t miss how empty she always feels after they’ve coupled.

But she does miss the rasp of his beard against the inside of her thighs, the thick feel of him inside her, the tickle of his breath in her ear. She does miss feeling sated in at least one way.

Perhaps that’s why her feet carry her to the field without her permission so she can watch him more closely. Perhaps that’s why she stares at him with such greedy hunger his movements slow to a stop and he looks up at her from his work. Perhaps that's why she does nothing to hide how wanton she feels when their gazes meet. In barely a heartbeat his goes from bemusement to hooded desire.

They shouldn’t--this distance has been good for them--and yet when he raises his brow in a wordless question, she answers it by licking her lips, nodding, and turning on her heel. She hears the rustle of his tunic and she’s never been more excited about a man putting his clothes on. She rushes through the gates, across the courtyard, up the stairs to the Keep. His footfalls follow her and she’s already tingling with anticipation, already so wet her smallclothes feel damp.

She’s barely inside her chamber before he’s right there, slamming the door shut and pressing her up against the rough wood.

“Do you want me?” He traps her by planting his hands on either side of her and leans in so close she feels his breath against her lips. “Tell me.”

“Yes,” she whispers. Chest heaving, she flits her eyes between his. They’re darker than sin. “I want you. I want-”

He steals her words by kissing her neck, her throat, her jaw. They fumble with their clothes, pushing up, pushing down, freeing only what needs freeing, and then he’s inside her and her leg is around his hips and he’s fucking her hard and fast and the scent of him is intoxicating and she wants to kiss his neck but she won’t. They’re fucking, just fucking, just fucking, and her hands are under his tunic and she pushes him closer, her nails digging into his back. When he nearly growls into her ear to say his name, to tell him who’s fucking her, she’s so dizzy from desire and pleasure that his name leaves her lips over and over until it sounds like nothing but moans.

But then his thrusts slow down, just a bit. His grip on her hips loosens. His teeth nipping at her neck are replaced by soft lips soothing the marks with kisses. And then he does stop, still buried inside her. The echoes of his name in her voice ring in her ears, louder than her heartbeats. A confession torn from her and she can’t stand the sound of it. Can’t stand the bitter taste of shame it left in her mouth. 

“Told you you don’t need a bed,” she says just to drown out the echoes, just to feel new words on her tongue.

He’s silent for a beat. Then he laughs, his shoulders bouncing beneath her hands. “No, but it would be more comfortable." He slides his hand up to her belly. "Don't want to hurt the baby. Come.”

He grabs her other thigh and hoists her up until she’s wrapped around his waist and carries her to bed. Lays her down gently. Follows her. Hovers over her on strong arms. They never do it this way. She's always on top where she can stop any moment she wants, leave any moment she wants, but now she's caged. Trapped in his shadow.

“I don’t want to do this anymore unless we do it properly,” he whispers. 

Something constricts her chest, as if she’s wearing the corset after all. As if someone’s standing behind her and pulling it so tight she can’t breathe. His face is coming closer and she doesn’t understand what it means. What he wants. What _properly_ entails or why he wants it when she knows--she _knows_ \--he doesn't love her and never did. And everything’s so broken between them. Twisted and ugly and sharp. Too sharp for _properly_ to do anything but cut them deeply. His lips are so close she can almost feel them and it would be so easy to give in. To kiss him and kiss him and fall all over again. Fall harder than ever and crash and break because he doesn't see her. He'll hurt her without even knowing it because he's never seen her. If he had, he would know. He would know how she's ached and loved and wanted. How she's wanted this, how she's dreamed of this, but that was then and now her hands connect with something warm and firm and she pushes. Hard.

Light spills in over her, freeing her, letting her breathe, and she scrambles farther into the light until she's curled up against the headboard, trembling like a scared little bird with her skirts pulled down over her legs.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice low and tired. "You said you never wanted me to--" He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his fingers against the scar over his eye. "I shouldn't have tried. I should've told you I'm done. Because I am. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m done being your whore. I’m done being a replacement.”

He’s sitting at the foot end of the bed, head hanging. And even now her heart tells her to embrace, to comfort, to validate and the words tumble out without her permission.

“You never were.”

“No?” He looks up at her with his mouth twisted into a joyless smile. “So I don’t look like him?”

“You do,” she whispers in a frail little voice, eyes brimming with tears that transforms him into a blur of pale linen and dark hair. “Just like him.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Maybe you are awful after all.”

“I’m tired.” She sniffles and draws in a shaky breath. “I’m so tired of lying. Of hiding. Of keeping it together. Of pretending nothing hurts. I can’t do it anymore.” Tears fall and she has no energy left to wipe them away. “I can’t do it.”

“Lying about what?” he says, hoarsely.

"Something I should've told you a long time ago."

He's still watching her, but she can’t see his expression through the veil of tears and she’s grateful for it. Can’t say what she needs to say if she has to witness his reaction.

She swallows thickly and focuses on her breathing, of controlling it until her short, quick breaths grow slower, steadier. Steady enough for the truth.

“It was you,” she says, hot tears rolling down her cheeks whenever she blinks. “Who broke my heart. It was you.”


	17. A Heart-Tree Prayer

The tears won’t stop rolling, her choked up throat releasing nothing but sobs. The headboard digs into her spine and the back of her head. The light is too bright on her face, leaving her exposed to the world when all she wants is to hide. If only she had the strength. But then strong arms wrap around her, one under her knees, the other around her back, and she’s lifted, carried away, laid down on something softer than clouds. A pillow is tucked under her. A blanket is tucked around her. A kind voice murmurs something and then he’s gone and she’s so tired, so so tired, and drifts into dreamless sleep.

She wakes to the clink of metal against wood. Rubbing her eyes, Sansa scoots up against the sloping arm rest until she’s sitting. On the table between her and the unlit fireplace, stands a tray with a teapot, a cup, a jar of honey, a jug of milk, a platter of cinnamon oatcakes, and a raven scroll.

“Here,” Jon murmurs, pouring a cup of tea for her, preparing it just as she likes it. “Here you go.”

Her hands close around the warm cup. Chamomile-scented steam rises to her nose and dampens her skin; she breathes it in deeply before sipping, letting her eyes drift shut as the warmth spreads in her body. 

“Is the raven for me?” she asks as she puts the cup down.

“What? Oh. No.” Jon snatches the scroll from the tray. “It’s from Sam. He’s…” Jon swallows audibly. “He’s very happy for us.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That we have an arrangement. But, uh…” He gestures awkwardly with his hand before pocketing the scroll. “Apparently, Tormund had already told him he thought something would happen. Between us.”

“Oh.

She picks up an oatcake and breaks off a piece just to have something to do with her hands. Her mood rules her appetite, though, and she ends up sitting there with her hands full of cake and her mouth as empty as her chest, while Jon’s attention moves between the floor and her as if he’s trying not to stare and failing. He wants answers. Answers that now seem lodged in her heart, unwilling to detach from the dark little place where she’s hidden them for so long. But he deserved the truth months ago and so she detaches herself and plucks those words from her heart and offers them to him as if handing a harvest report.

“For quite some time, even before we knew the truth, I was in love with you.”

Jon sucks in a breath, gawking at her with eyes as wide as his open mouth before averting his gaze with a sharp exhale.

“I know. Very shocking. You’re the Targaryen and I was the one who…” She inhales slowly and licks her lips, looking at her fingers breaking off another piece of cake she won’t eat. “I’ve wondered why many times. Was it Cersei’s influence? Did Littlefinger twist me? Did Ramsay break me? Was I always like this? Sometimes I think I was. That day in the broken tower, when you were a dragon, I remember thinking you were so unlike Robb and Theon. You were kind to me and I loved you for it. Just for a moment. But I did. Then, at Castle Black, you were kind again when barely anyone had been kind to me in years. Perhaps that was all it took. A bit of kindness. A handsome face. Whatever it was, I fell for you and I loved you. Deeply. Foolishly.”

Years old heartbreak seizes her in a tight grip, cruel fingers digging into her lungs and her heart and her throat; she exhales slowly, carefully until the hold loosens and she can continue.

“When you left for Dragonstone, that’s when I knew the love I felt wasn’t appropriate. I longed for you in ways I shouldn’t. Felt like a wife waiting for her husband to return from the war. You didn’t send me any ravens. I was left with my imagination, and that’s never good. And I missed you so much, kept thinking back on our time together. The way you looked at me sometimes…”

She shakes her head at herself and drops the oatcake back down on the tray, rubbing her fingers together to brush off the crumbs.

“After Bran came back, he sometimes talked about timelines. How he could see possibilities, as if time were a tree with many branches. That the choices people made pruned the tree until only one future remained. I thought of that, after you told us the truth. I thought, had things been different, had people made different choices and you’d been allowed to be who you are, Father would’ve arranged a match between us. I thought we were meant to be, that people made the wrong choices and the future changed and I ended up betrothed to Joffrey instead. But now we could correct it.” 

Jon sucks in another breath and leaves the divan to stand by the window with his back to her. To distance himself from her and her horrible confession.

“Yes,” she says, quietly. “I thought you felt the same. For a while. I did. You know what I’m like. Head full of songs and stupid dreams. I still hadn’t learned. Not really. Even before we knew the truth, I was naive enough to hope. Not that you would kiss me--you’d never cross that line--but that we could love each other chastely. Never marry other people. Just you and me in Winterfell for the rest of our days.” She laughs joylessly at herself, at her pathetic dreams; Jon stares at out the window. “But then you came home with that woman. I didn’t know how to handle it. It’s why I couldn’t even pretend to like her. Every time I saw her, I was filled with this…” Sansa tightens her hands into fists, pressing her lips together. “This rage. I was so jealous and I didn’t know what to do with that feeling. You were _mine_. But you weren’t. You were hers.”

“I wasn’t,” he rasps out.

“I know. She told me.”

Jon turns around then, brow knitted. “She _knew_?”

“Of course not. She was an idiot. She wanted to assuage my fears that she was using you and made sure I knew she came north for you and only you. Jon’s war, she called it. The most important war in history, and she didn’t care. She only cared about her throne and about you. That’s when I knew you had done what you needed to do to protect us. Or I hoped.”

Oatcake crumbs dot the wool blanket tucked around her. She picks them one by one and lays them on the tray on the table before reaching for the pot to pour herself more tea, but Jon is there instantly and pours it for her. Adds milk and honey too. Then he sits back down, as far away from her as he can.

“I waited for you to come to me,” she says against the lip of the cup “To ask for my help. This was something I knew. How to handle someone like her. We were supposed to work together--you said it yourself. So I waited and waited, but you avoided me. You barely said two words to me and when you did, you seemed annoyed. And then you left. You just left me. Again. No explanations, no apologies, no thank yous, no _anything_. You barely even said goodbye.”

She looks up at him then. He’s beautiful and still, sitting with his head bowed like a statue of the Warrior carved from finest stone. Only a lock of dark hair that has escaped his bun moves, swaying gently in the draft coming in through the shutters. She can’t even see him breathing.

“They wanted to make me queen,” she says, just to see him react and he does. A subtle turn of his head as if cocking his ear. “Our bannermen. While you were at Dragonstone. Did you know?”

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

“They lost their faith in you and wanted to give me your throne and I turned them down. I hadn’t lost faith. I still believed in you and I made sure they did too. Yes, I wavered for a moment when I saw how she looked at you, it’s true, but only for a moment. I even felt guilty for it--isn’t that ridiculous? I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” he murmurs.

“I am. When it comes to you, I am. Just look at me.” She gestures at her belly even though he keeps staring at the floor. “I don’t know why I did this. I don’t know what I was _thinking_. I wasn’t. I just wanted. That’s the funny thing. There were moments, after everything was over, when I thought maybe you loved her after all. That it was why you never came back home. I almost wanted you to, because _that_ I would’ve understood. Loving someone so much it made you stupid. I came south for you, to save you, to bring you back home, to make you king again. After everything you had done, I still believed in you. I still believed you loved me. I believed maybe you and I--”

She takes a shuddering breath and presses her fingers against her mouth, hard. She won’t cry again. She won’t.

“You couldn’t even bring yourself to forgive me for sharing your secret. Even though you would forgive anyone anything. But not me. Tyrion was afraid of her. Varys always watched her as if she were a jug of wildfire. I thought they would support you, protect you. I know it was reckless. I know. But I was desperate. I was losing you and I couldn’t think clearly. So, yes, you loving her so badly, so desperately, you’d do anything for her--even stupid things-- _that_ I could understand because that’s how I felt about you. But you didn’t love her. You just didn’t love me. Not even as family.”

“Sansa--”

“Don’t you dare tell me you loved me." Her voice is low and dark and hot, like embers smoldering beneath ashes, and now the tears come after all and there’s no use stopping them. “Maybe you thought you did. Maybe you told yourself you did for Father’s sake, but you don’t treat people you love the way you treated me. That’s how you treat someone you’re forced to put up with.”

Jon shuts his mouth, lips pale, and stares down at his hands lying like dead spiders in his lap.

“I trusted you, I believed in you, I had faith in you--because I was stupid enough to believe you’d never break that trust but you did. You know how difficult it was for me to trust and you took it for granted. You took _me_ for granted. You even broke my heart and you never even noticed. You never saw me. I kept waiting for you to see me, but you never did. I fought for a man who didn’t want me. I had faith in a man who had no faith in me. I waited for a man who never came. Once you were pardoned, you disappeared. You couldn’t have been more clear. You wanted nothing to do with me. It took me such a long time to stop hoping that you’d come home to me, that you’d ride through the gates one day and take me into your arms and _stay_. It took me such a long time to stop loving you, to realize you didn't _deserve_ my love, but I did it. I did it. So don’t you _dare_ tell me you loved me.”

He’s blinking slowly, head still hanging like a drunken man on the verge of toppling over. Like a man steeped in guilt. And her own guilt rears its nasty head, heating her up unpleasantly until her cheeks tingle beneath the tears and she has to unwrap herself from the blanket to cool.

“We can’t help who we love,” she mumbles, discreetly wiping her wet cheeks with her fingertips, “nor can we help who we don’t. You did your duty. You tried to protect me. It’s not your fault I wanted more. It’s not your fault it took me so long to see what we really were to one another.”

With his elbow on his thigh, he leans his forehead against the knuckles of his fist and closes his eyes.

“I know you care about me. In some way. Maybe you even feel something now when I’m carrying your child and we’ve been-- It’s normal. Happens all the time. It’s why I’ve kept my distance. I had to be cold, Jon. I wanted a baby. But I didn’t want to fall in love again--and if I let you kiss me? If I let you--”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I should’ve told you, but I didn’t think it mattered anymore. I’d stopped loving you. When I saw you in the courtyard that day, all I felt was anger and it was such a relief. But I still wanted your children--despite it all, I did--and I thought, if we could only keep things…” She finds no proper word to describe what she means and gestures vaguely with her hands. “But we couldn’t. And now we’re intimate and I want you so badly and it feels so good in the moment, it does, but afterwards? I feel awful. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore. If I fall again... It would be so much worse this time." 

He nods then, slowly, mouth twisted. Then he takes a deep breath and scrubs his hands over his face and gets up from the divan. Walks to the hearth, stays there for a beat with his hand on the mantelpiece and his shoulders up at his ears, walks back to the divan. Sighs deeply. Sits back down.

“What do you need?” he asks, his eyes blank and dark like forest tarns. 

“What?”

“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

She blinks at him. “I don’t know. I…” 

“It doesn’t matter what it is. Even if you need me to leave.”

He says it with a self-deprecating smile, but his suggestion feels like air to her lungs after being trapped underwater for far too long. He must see it too, the relief in her eyes, for his eyes dull before he closes them with a soft exhale.

“All right. I’ll leave.”

“I can’t ask that of you. It’s not fair. I told you you can stay here for as long as you like and I meant it.”

“We have to think about him,” Jon says, nodding at her belly. “It’s wearing you down. My being here. It’s not good for you and it's not good for the baby.” He gives her a sad smile. “I think we could do with some time apart.”

“And how long is that?”

“However long you need it to be.”

“I want you here for the birth. I _need_ you here for the birth.”

His smile softens. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Where will you go?”

“The mountain. I’ve been--”

“No!” She reaches for him instinctively, draws her hands back before touching him. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I need to go back there. Someone has to and you know I’m the only one who can do it. In case they’re dangerous. But I don’t think they are. I have no right to ask you to trust me, I know that, but I don’t think they are.”

“What if you don’t come back.”

“I will. Nothing could keep me away. I _promise_. I will be here for the birth, no matter what it takes.”

“Don’t say that. When people say that something always happens. You’re practically inviting the gods to curse you.”

“I’ll be the exception. I swear it."

She scoots closer to him. “You want me to trust you. But then you have to trust me too. Write down what I would need to find this place if you do not return. Seal the scroll and give it to me and I will swear to you that I will not open it until after our child is born and only if you have not come back. If you come back before the baby is born, I will show you the scroll with the unbroken seal. Do this and I won’t interfere with your plans. I won’t send people out to find the valley. Can you do that? Can you trust _me_?”

  
  


* * *

* * *

Jon dips the quill in ink, puts it to parchment, and writes down roughly where the valley is located, the names of the people he knows sometimes leave the Iron Mountains to do whatever they’re doing out in the world, and other details Sansa could use if she needed to find Korpsilmae Valley. 

Lastly, after thinking it over for long enough he leaves an ink stain on the parchment, he adds, “ _I know you don’t want me to say it, but you said nothing about writing. I love you, Sansa. Deeply. Foolishly. And I was yours. Then. Now. Always._ ”

Then, before fear of rejection and fear of betrayal can stay his hand, he blots the ink, rolls up the parchment, and seals it with wax.

  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  


He’s sealed the scroll with a direwolf sigil, one that must’ve lain in his desk drawer all these years without anyone moving it. In case he’d ever return. Just like Arya’s chamber stays as it was when she left.

Sansa is careful not to touch him when she accepts the scroll. Then she chooses a box from her vanity, empties it of jewelry she rarely wears, lays the scroll on the velvet-draped bottom, and locks it with a heart-shaped key. But when she’s about to sink down on her knees and hide the key under a loose stone beneath her bed, Jon plucks the key from her fingers and does it himself.

(He’s careful not to touch her too.)

“Thank you,” she says.

“Can’t have you crawling on all fours,” he says with a quick smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Not in your condition.”

“Thank you for _listening_. I think I needed it. Telling you all that.”

Jon nods, eyes averted.

“It can’t have been very pleasant to hear."

Jon shrugs, still not looking at her, and she can’t think of anything else to say. So she stands back and waits for him, counting ten breaths before he finally turns back to her and asks whether he can say goodbye to the baby.

“You’re leaving already?”

“Aye, it's for the best, isn't it?"

When she nods her consent, he sinks to his knees before her, but he doesn’t cradle her belly like he usually does nor does he lean his forehead against it or ask the baby to kick for his papa. He only murmurs something so quietly Sansa can’t make out any words.

“We’re awful, aren’t we?” she says once he’s back on his feet. “Selfish. I know I should’ve had moontea. I knew it then too, but I couldn’t. I already loved him so much--and now look at us. What kind of life will this child have?”

“A good one,” Jon says, softly. “This child is so loved, so wanted--by both his mother _and_ his father. Not every child can say the same.”

“Really?” she whispers, smiling hopefully at him through her tears.

“I wanted this just as much as you did. Don’t ever think I didn’t. Our child is _lucky_.”

Holding her gaze for long enough she feels a hint of butterflies swirling around in her stomach, Jon sighs so deeply his whole chest moves. Then he makes for the door and she feels herself following him, feels his name falling from her lips like a plea. He turns around with his hand on the door handle, eyes dark beneath a furrowed brow.

“I never meant for all of this to happen,” she says. “It’s why I pushed you away that day. That morning after we… Because I feared this. And still I let it happen. I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I encouraged it. I did. Over and over when I should’ve seen what this was doing to you. It’s my fault. _My_ fault. Not yours.” The last few words come out in a whisper. He swallows thickly, eyes as wet as her own, and bows his head. “Goodbye, Sansa.”

The door closes behind him. She doesn’t allow herself to go to the window and wait for him to cross the courtyard. Doesn’t allow herself to watch him leave. This is good. This is what she needs. Time to breathe, to gather herself, to rebuild her defenses. This is better for the baby. It's better for all of them. And it does feel like relief, like removing a corset after a long day and filling her lungs with air. But it feels like a loss too, as if the corset kept her back straight, kept her together, and now she collapses on the divan and rests one hand on her belly and holds the tea cup with the other to find some calm in the milky liquid. She’s so deep in thought it takes quite a while for it to register that the baby is kicking. Kicking so hard she can feel it against her palm.

She shoots to her feet, tea cup falling to the floor with a crash, and races down the hallway, down the walkways, out to the ramparts, where she scans the field for Jon and Shadow. But she sees nothing but green grass and clusters of trees against the backdrop of low mountains and clear blue sky.

He’s gone.

Words come to her then. Words of comfort given to her by Sam after Jon left for King’s Landing and Sam found her standing right here, on the ramparts, watching Jon grow smaller against the horizon until he was out of sight. Words of comfort that didn’t feel like it then nor feel like it now, and she walks back to her chamber with worry already chipping away at her heart and their son kicking a rhythm against her palm.

* * *

* * *

By now, Tormund must only be days from Eastwatch. He’ll want to meet, Jon knows. He’ll want to hear about the baby from him. And while most of his belongings are in the valley, as long as he has Shadow and a dagger, Jon can survive in the wild. But whenever he imagines how that conversation would unfold, telling Tormund about the baby and the arrangement and why Jon isn’t at Winterfell anymore, dread slithers around in his stomach like a lamprey. 

He wouldn’t even be able to tell the truth. If Sansa wanted Tormund to know how she once felt, she would’ve told him herself already. She would’ve told him years ago. The way she’s guarded the secret that was her feelings… He had no idea. Perhaps no one knows.

No. Jon cannot betray her that way. He's hurt her enough for one lifetime.

So he rides for the Iron Mountains after all. Shadow still remembers the way, the hidden passages one must brave where the tunnels sometimes are so low he dismounts and leads the horse on foot. They’re dark too. Sometimes only for ten steps. Sometimes for a hundred. But soon the dark gives way to light and he enters a sunny valley where the air is always crisp and the mountaintops surrounding them are always covered in snow and Ronne waits for him with a big smile on his face as if he knew Jon was coming.

  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  


The scent of linden flowers wafts through the godswood. With a wicker basket hanging from the crook of her elbow, Sansa walks beneath the blooming branches to harvest the flowers, smiling contentedly. It always was one of her favorite scents in all the world. The summer-fresh scent of happier times when dreams seemed within reach and Septa Mordane sometimes let the girls work on their embroidery in the godswood as long as they sat in the shade of a tree and the boys played elsewhere.

Now that Sansa no longer wears a corset and all of Winterfell knows about her condition, she’s not allowed to climb any ladders and she plucks flowers only from low hanging branches. She’s barely allowed to do anything at all. Everywhere she turns, someone’s there to help her and fuss over her and spoil her. On Wolkan’s orders, Kari and Ella even make sure Sansa naps at least once a day, never sits longer than an hour at her desk at a time, eats well, and takes one stroll in the morning and one in the afternoon for exercise and fresh air and improving her digestion. She wasn’t even this coddled as a little girl.

Oh, they whisper too, the people of Winterfell, she knows that. But the joy of soon welcoming a little prince or princess is stronger than any judgment. If she had a gold dragon for every time someone’s said, “It was about time she got herself an heir,” she would have enough to buy half the Iron Fleet.

She has the northern ladies to thank for it, she supposes. By now the North has grown used to women taking matters into their own hands and having heirs without husbands. 

“The bark really is remarkable too, Your Grace,” Maester Wolkan says, his voice coming from up high where he stands on a ladder with his head obscured by foliage.

Then he goes on and on about all the wonderful properties of the linden tree’s bark, leaves, and flowers. Linden tea soothes upset stomachs and mild pains and frayed nerves and so on. But Sansa only listens with one ear. A tree has caught her attention. A grand old thing, several hundred years old and split into multiple moss-adorned trunks that provide a cradle low enough that even those who don’t enjoy climbing trees can climb up easily. After making sure neither Wolkan nor Kari is watching her, she puts her back to the trunk and her hands in the cradle and hoists herself up.

Once she's seated comfortably, with her feet dangling only a few hand-breadths over the ground and her hand resting against one of the trunks, it strikes Sansa that she's sat just like this before. Right in this very tree. Closing her eyes, she lets the scent of linden flowers stir up a memory that feels as ancient (as special) as the tree itself from the depths of her heart.

Once upon a time, when she was a young girl with her head in the clouds, she sat right here and prayed to the linden tree just to anger Arya. If she focuses, she can still hear her feisty little sister’s screeching voice teasing Sansa over her love for all things southern. She can no longer remember why Arya was so angry that day. It was the way it was. Some days they got along, other days… And that day Arya teased her relentlessly from the moment they woke and by midday, Sansa was so sick of it she could cry.

“Just ignore her,” everyone said. “She _wants_ you to be upset. Ignore her and it’ll stop.”

Now, years later, she knows all Arya wanted was attention and to feel included, and didn’t have the means to express it in a more healthy way. But back then Sansa felt as if the whole world was against her and she fled to the sept for a moment of peace.

“You shouldn’t go to the sept!” Arya shouted, running after her. “You should pray to the old gods like a true Northerner or you’re a traitor!” 

At that Sansa finally ran out of patience, whirled around, and screamed in Arya’s face that if she wanted Sansa to worship a tree that badly, then worship a tree she would! Then she marched out to the godswood, pointedly passed the heart-tree, and declared for all who could hear that she would find herself a heart-tree of her own. 

The sky was overcast that day, but as if the gods were on Sansa’s side for once, they stirred the clouds just then and let a beam of light shower a big old tree deep in the godswood, painting it gold. With a gasp, Sansa picked up her skirts and rushed forward, and when she saw the heart-shaped leaves of the linden tree, it really did feel like a sign from the gods. It felt like magic, like something out of a song, and she plucked a leaf and kissed it sweetly before tucking it into her pocket and climbing up to sit in the cradle. There, she glared down at Arya who glared right back.

“This _my_ heart-tree,” Sansa said with her nose in the air, “and you’re not invited.”

“It’s a stupid heart-tree,” Arya said and kicked the trunk. “It doesn’t even have a face.”

“Would you shut up. I’m praying.”

Eyes closed, Sansa then prayed out loud (and rather loudly) for a handsome knight to come save her from the terrible stinky monster at the foot of the tree, to carry her away to his castle, and give her many beautiful sons and daughters while Arya stomped around on the ground and growled and teased and snapped and kicked. Then, right as Arya decided to climb up too, Jon came out of nowhere and swept up Arya on his shoulders and galloped through the godswood, shouting about a dragon in need of slaying and, oh, _please_ , couldn’t ser Arya save them all? All without sparing Sansa a single look, as if it were nothing but a coincidence that he stopped Arya from driving her sister half mad (and possibly even pushing her out of a tree). 

But the next time Sansa returned to the tree, a face had been carved into one of the trunks--right where she’d pressed her hand as she prayed. A face she knows was carved by Jon, even if he never confessed to it.

The linden tree bloomed then too, Sansa remembers. That perfectly sweet scent of summer filling the air.

That year she spent many an afternoon in the linden cradle, reading books and singing songs and touching the carved face as she prayed for wonderful things that never ended up happening. Perhaps that's why she forgot. She prayed for love and family and happiness and what did she get?

By now, the face is covered with moss. She picks up a small knife from her basket and gently scrapes it off until she’s uncovered the carving. It looks so small now. The size of her hands put together. But back then, when she was but a young girl, it looked as impressive as the face of the real heart-tree.

With the tip of her finger, she follows the outlines of the eyes and mouth and nose while the baby somersaults in her stomach.

“I know,” she whispers, stroking her belly. "I'm worried too."

Hand placed on the carved face, she prays to gods she doesn’t believe in for the first time in years and, as if the gods listened, as if the gods smiled down on her and her linden tree for the second time in her life, a letter arrives the following day by courier. A letter with her name written on it in Jon’s handwriting. It’s to her own heart-tree Sansa goes then, rather than to the red-leafed one she usually chooses for moments like this. It’s beneath the linden flowers she opens the letters with trembling fingers and reads.

_“I hope this letter finds you well. I have now spent about a month in the valley. Besides a bout of the summer cough that lasted a week, I am well.”_

She closes her eyes and breathes out her relief before reading the rest of the letter, examining every word for hidden meanings, every quill stroke for signs of distress, and finding none. Only then does she relax fully and, surrounded by one of her favorite scents in the world, cradled by the many trunks of an ancient linden tree, she reads aloud to their child about the stable Jon’s building and the food he’s eaten and the book he’s reading. All mundane things she treasures like the rarest of jewels. 

He must know, mustn’t he? What it means to her. How it calms her more than any of Wolkan’s teas ever could. That’s why he wrote. That’s why he finally wrote to her.

“Your father is safe,” she murmurs to her belly. “And he’ll be home soon enough.”

Then she once more touches the carved face and prays. Not for things being different this time. One letter is a frail thing to hang the weight of her hope upon. She knows better than to pray for that. But she prays that he’ll stay safe. She prays that Sam’s words are true. And when she opens her eyes and a gentle breeze whispers through the godswood, she imagines she hears the gods' reply in the rustling of the heart-shaped leaves above.

_Jon always comes back._


	18. Korpsilmae Valley

Every morning, after breakfast, a large group of people walk up the valley to the area forbidden to Jon. Mostly men. A few women. All of them interacting the way soldiers do, that banter and ribbing, those shoves and slaps on the back, that boisterous laughter born from the confidence of knowing they’re set apart from the rest--and needing to assert it too.

 _We’re brave and strong; you should be lucky to have us_ , their behavior declares.

 _You should be wary of them_ , Jon’s instincts say.

This is why he’s here. Not to build stables and cabins or tame horses the same breed as Shadow or eat reindeer stew beneath a birch tree or settle down in the evenings with a lantern to read another chapter of _Lies of the Ancients_ , but to investigate.

And so, one day when ink-colored clouds cast the valley in gloom and a rain shower drives most inside, Jon follows the soldiers to a simple log-house with a thatched roof and a heavy door he hears them barring after entering even over the noise of the downpour. Once they’re all inside, he sneaks up to one of the glassless portholes letting in light and peers inside.

It’s sparsely furnished. A few benches and stools, a few weapon racks (swords, shields, and staves). A rug covers most of the floor. One woven from tree bark by three women from the Neck. Jon has one himself to sleep on and knows it’s durable and somewhat rough but protects you well enough from the cold of the northern ground. 

The soldiers have lined up in four neat rows in front of a short man with olive skin, black curls, and a clean-shaven chin, who’s wearing more layers than most wear up here. He greets the soldiers, tells them to warm up, and then leads them through a series of movements unfamiliar to Jon. The way they stretch out their arms and twist their bodies, they look almost as if they’re dancing. Once they’re all flushed, the leader claps his hands and the soldiers grab staves from the rack and pair up.

The leader regards them with his chin held proudly. “What do we say to the god of death?”

“Not today,” the soldiers answer in unison.

A chill trickles down Jon’s spine. He’s seen enough and turns around to leave--only to find a smiling Ronne waiting behind him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Ronne says. “Got lost?”

“I thought you were peaceful. What is going on in there?”

“We are. But others aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with protecting what’s yours.” Ronne lays his hand on Jon’s shoulder and steers him back down the valley toward the settlement. “Is this something that interests you? I know you’re busy with the horses and building and all, but those of us who have seen you fight know your talents might be better suited for the Claws.”

“The Claws.”

“I’m a Wing. I soar across Westeros and take people under my wing. Among other things.”

“Are there Eyes too? Perhaps three of them.” 

Ronne laughs. “Do you want to join them? You can still build and tame horses, if you want. All of Nodareoh’s students have other duties too.”

“Who is he? He wasn’t here before.”

“He’s someone who wanted a different kind of life. Like all of us. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask him yourself. I can introduce you. I’m sure he’d be interested in sparring with you.”

“I’m not here to fight.”

They’ve reached the wooden pavilion around which the people often gather at night to light a bonfire and listen to stories or songs, and now Ronne leads Jon inside to get out of the rain. They’re both soaking wet, dripping water all over the floorboards.

“Why are you here?” Ronne asks.

“To help.”

“No, you’re not. You’re here to spy on us.” He pauses in a way that would be dramatic had he not kept that face of a friendly uncle he so often wears. “This is the first time I’ve seen you sneaking about, though. And I think we both know, if you really thought we were a threat to the other kingdoms, you would’ve tried becoming one of us. Infiltrating and all, yeah? But you keep to yourself. You know we’re not a threat. So what are you doing here?”

Jon sighs deeply, looking out over the rain washing the valley clean.

“I don’t know why you left in a haste,” Ronne says, “and I don’t know why you returned. I don't have the greensight, but I’m good at reading people. Always ways. It’s why I’ve been chosen to do the things I do. And my guess is that you left your heart wherever you were, cos your heart is not here. Now, I’ve been told Jon Snow can stay for as long as he likes--oath or no oath. But if you ask me, at some point you’ll have to commit. Either to us or to the woman you were running away from. And if it’s to us?” He touches Jon’s shoulder to draw his attention back. “You gotta start giving a little, Jon. All right?”

* * *

Nodareoh has been watching him for days. Sometimes he watches Jon with the horses. Other times he watches him build something or other. Mostly he observes him at meal times when Jon lines up quietly where stews or soups or grilled meat is served before heading off to his favorite spot beneath the birches to eat in peace.

On the fourth day, after Jon has turned in his empty bowl to be washed by the kitchen boys, Nodareoh finally approaches. He’s holding two sparring swords. The hearty stew filling Jon’s belly now feels like an oily lump weighing him down. And, as they walk off to a secluded stretch of grass hidden behind a birch copse, his pulse picks up and his hands go damp.

“I have heard stories about you and your skills, Jon Snow of Winterfell. It would be my honor and pleasure to teach you new ways of fighting. Your weapon of choice is the sword, yes?”

“I don’t fight anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Grew tired of it.”

“And how long has it been?”

“Five-six years.”

Nodareoh sizes him up. “A blade needs honing. You must be dull by now, yes?” He throws Jon the sword; he catches it reflexively. “Show me your skills.”

Jon swallows, adjusts his grip on the hilt. Nodareoh shifts his body so that he stands sideways, holding his sword out, ready to attack or parry. The air feels thick and hot, difficult to breathe. Taking his position, Jon pushes air in and out of his nose. His mouth tastes like blood and ashes. He can already hear the wet noise of a blade slicing flesh. The gurgled last breath. The clank of metal against metal. The cries of horror. The frenzy of people fleeing the mayhem and his feet tell him to flee too.

“I’m not a fighter,” he grinds out. “Not anymore.”

He hands back the sword, finds Shadow, and gallops through the valley away from the sun and toward a tarn that lies placid and blue like a sapphire between green fields mottled with clusters of pink heather, white mountain avens, blue snow gentians, and bushes of black crowberries. Golden eagles soar up above, black-throated loons glide across the tarn, butterflies flutter between the flowers, lemmings skitter over a stretch of exposed bedrock and disappear into a downy willow.

All around him is calm. All around him is life. Jon lies down on the mossy ground, lets his eyes slide shut, and rests. Falls asleep.

He dreams of black snakes slithering in his chest, in his gut, in his heart. He dreams of copper hair and glossy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. He dreams of a whisper-thin voice accusing and pleading and forgiving.

He dreams of a scroll in a box and the confession written in black.

He wakes in a cold sweat.

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself staring right into the crinkled brown eyes of one Essosi swordsman. 

Jon's hand shoots out on its own accord to grab the threat by the throat, but Nodareoh evades him easily.

“Good reflexes!” Nodareoh beams at him. “I start each new day by greeting the sun. The company of Jon Snow of Winterfell would honor me greatly.” He inspects their surroundings with a satisfied nod. “This is a good place. Tomorrow at sunrise. Meet me here.”

* * *

Grumbling under his breath, Jon scrambles out of the sleeping skins and gets to his feet. If he wants to know what these people are doing, he better mosey down to the tarn whether he likes it or not. Nodareoh is already there, holding quarterstaves and watching the rising sun cast its first rays over the tarn. Without turning around, he starts talking fondly of the midnight sun they had only some months ago, when Jon was at Winterfell. And how, even though daybreak still comes early enough, he already dreads the approaching winter months when the sun will rise more and more late in the day.

“We’ll have to rise when it’s still dark out,” Nodareoh says, shaking his head. “That cannot be good for a man. Dark is for sleep.” Nodareoh first hands Jon one of the staves and then grips his own with two hands and holds it out in front of him horizontally. “Come now. Do what I do.”

Glancing at Nodareoh, Jon follows the man’s movements as he stretches out his limbs and twists his body this way and that by using the staff for support or balance. Every so often Nodareoh inspects Jon’s attempts, guides him to turn his neck or shift the staff just so--and to remember how to breathe. To time his breaths with his movements.

Once they’re done, blood rushes through Jon’s veins. He’s sweaty and his heart beats as if he’s been sparring.

“Tomorrow again. Good!” Nodareoh walks away without waiting for an answer.

They meet every morning for a whole week. Jon’s body comes alive--and his mind too. He feels focused and clear and sharp. He likes it well enough he ends each day with similar stretching that loosen his sore muscles after working for hours and hours. But his favorite part is that Nodareoh never talks or asks questions. They just exist in the same space in silence for half an hour every day and then on day eight, Nodareoh ends his routine by whirling around and slamming his staff forward in an attack Jon reflexively blocks with his own staff before he's even registered what's happening. Nodareoh grins and attacks again. Jon blocks, panting, heart beating wildly.

“I am from Meereen. Grew up in the fighting pits.” Another attack Jon parries, wood clashing against wood. “Fought my way into a small fortune--or so it seemed to a poor motherless boy. Bought my freedom. Worked as a sellsword for a while to get coin in my purse. I could kill you with this. Easily.”

Nodareoh hits Jon behind the knees, sweeping him off his feet; Jon lands in the grass with an _oof_ , pain spreading across his back, and loses his hold on the staff. With one swift kick, Nodareoh has launched the thing into the air and catches it with his other hand.

“Better yet. I know how to disarm you.” He strikes against Jon’s throat, stopping close enough the wood brushes Jon’s skin. “Every day I ask my students: what do we say to the god of death?”

“Not today?” Jon says, pushing the staff away from his throat.

“Yes. Because we are not killing anyone.” Holding both staves in one hand now, Nodareoh offers Jon help to stand. His sleeve rides up enough that Jon can see the dots on his wrist (two black; one red). Once he’s pulled Jon back on his feet, he hands back the staff. “Have you ever heard of the House of Black and White?”

“Aye. Faceless Men.”

“You are familiar? I used to be one. But I did not want to be No One. I wanted to be Dareh.” He flashes a brilliant smile. “That’s what my friends call me, so I’m still Nodareoh to you.”

As they keep sparring, Nodareoh tells him that while some men become sellswords for the joy of killing, he became one because he had no other skills. But the more he killed, the more he hardened until his heart was made of stone. Then his profession brought him to Braavos and he found the House of Black and White. Killing for a higher purpose seemed better than killing for coin; he threw himself into his new calling, telling himself it was good and right. The god of death did not discriminate. If someone suffered, rich or poor, the poisoned black water was a merciful solution. If someone sacrificed enough, rich or poor, the order would kill whomever they named.

“As a sellsword, I killed rich men for other rich men. As No One, I killed anyone--even old people, children, women, cripples. If a name was given, you killed. Finding the sense in that… I struggled. This Many Faced God, I could not worship him. No One should feel nothing. But with every kill, my stone-heart cracked until it bled--and Nodareoh felt _everything_. So I left. Stopped killing. No more. Wandered the world in hopes of finding my true calling. Helping seems a better solution to end suffering, yes? But how does one lonely person without means help the many? I traveled the world and helped where I could but nothing seemed enough. Then, one day, I met Ronne and he told me I was needed in a valley at the edge of the world.”

“How did he know? It’s Bran, isn’t it? Your leader. The Three-Eyed Raven.”

Nodareoh shrugs helplessly. “I am but a teacher. I am not at liberty to say. Our leader is not present. But his Eyes, they see things in their dreams--”

“Greenseers.”

“Yes. They tell the Wings what they have seen and the Wings do what needs to be done. And now I am here, where I belong. We will never be invaded by armies up here, but someone like me could sneak in. An assassin, a sellsword, a Faceless Man. This is what I teach our Claws: detecting, defending, disarming--even killing. Yes, if killing an enemy means an innocent will live, then kill we will. But it should never be the first solution. The god of death is too well-fed already.”

“And you want to teach me that?”

“War broke you, yes? One battle too many.”

“I’ve always fought to protect people or stop monsters. But this time?” Jon shakes his head. “I was on the wrong side. I helped the monster."

Nodareoh nods, regarding Jon. “Do you always feel like running when you touch a sword?”

Jon ducks his head, nudging at the ground with the end of his staff. “Not always.”

“Do you ever wear your sword anymore?”

“Not often.”

“And when you touch the staff?”

“It’s different.” Jon drums his fingers against the wood. “Better.”

“But do you _want_ to be able to wield a sword one day?”

“I don’t want to kill.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Longclaw still lies in the crevice. Waiting. Dormant. Jon doesn’t miss the weight on his hip, not really. Up here he is Jon the Builder and he doesn’t need a sword. But one day his child will be old enough to wield it, and even though the thought of holding a sword with the intention of harming is enough to make Jon sweat, he knows with all he is that he should be the one to teach his son how to fight. It should be him. No one else.

And his son might need Jon’s protection one day. Sansa might.

An image flashes in his mind’s eye, one of Sansa looking at him through teary lashes with so much pain his stomach roils. She trusted him to protect her and he--

Jon grips the staff so hard his knuckles pale and blocks out the memory.

“I do,” he says, “want to wield a sword again. But I don’t know how.”

Nodareoh just smiles. “I hear they caught a filly. You are breaking her in today, yes? Show me.”

The filly is waiting in the paddock and Jon spends quite a while letting her get used to him. Once she accepts his touch he pets her and grooms her, always giving her space whenever she’s skittish. Then he gets the saddle blanket and strokes it against her sides, backing away whenever she jolts, strokes again, slowly, slowly, until he can place it on her back. Then he rewards her with pets and kind words and leaves her be for a moment.

Standing at the fence with his arms resting on the railing, Nodareoh says, “Why do you do that, with the saddle blanket?”

“She’s never felt anything like it. It frightens her. I have to let her get used to it slowly, show her that it’s not going to hurt her. It requires some patience, but it’s better in the long run.”

Nodareoh grins at Jon. “I wonder what lesson one could learn from that.”

Brow knitted, Jon looks at him while his mind puts the pieces together. “Ah.” He smiles too. “Yeah.”

“Do it in your own time, at your own pace. Treat yourself with the same patience you are treating those horses, yes? And we will keep training with the staves until you are ready to join the Claws.”

“Join?”

“Just for sparring, Jon Snow of Winterfell. Just for sparring.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


At dusk Jon pulls out Longclaw from its hiding place. Straps it on. Rides down to the tarn. There he settles down on the exposed bedrock with a swatch of oiled leather and tends to the sword for the first time in a long time, polishing into a glow the way he saw Eddard Stark do so many times by the pond in the godswood.

Valyrian steel needs no honing, but it’s a soothing habit. A way of bonding even with something cold and lifeless. In the light of the setting sun, Longclaw’s ruby-chip eyes glimmer at him and it feels like approval. 

* * *

* * *

Yellow leaves carpet the ground beneath the linden tree. The raw air promises rain from the overcast sky. Sansa pulls the hood of her fur-lined cloak over her head and settles down in the linden cradle with Jon’s latest letter and reads aloud to their child. It sounds peaceful, his life. He works and trains and rides, and spends his evenings either reading or listening to his friends swapping songs and stories by the fire.

The scroll locked in a box in her chambers feels silly now. She’s almost thrown it in the hearth twice, to fully accept that the settlement in the valley means no ill. If there are any hidden messages in his letters, she can’t find them. Jon seems content and safe. 

She’s just finished reading the letter a second time when the sky opens up and releases autumn rain. She pulls the cloak tighter around herself and waddles back to the Keep. 

_Seems_ is a funny thing, though. She knows better than to trust _seems_.

She wears the key to the box around her neck now. Takes out the scroll sometimes when she worries. Takes it out now. It would be so easy to break the seal. She wouldn’t have to act on it. But she could make preparations. Just to be safe.

Sometimes she thinks Jon never wrote any instructions. That, if she were to break the seal after all, she'd find something for _her_. An explanation. An apology. Anything. Most of the time, she thinks he wrote something for their child. He never did trust her.

He still adds no details in his letters. If he had deemed the place safe, wouldn’t he share those things with her? She taps the scroll against her vanity. 

_Stop it._ He can’t write details in his letters, just like she has to be careful about what she writes in hers: in case they fall into the wrong hands.

She’s being paranoid. She has to trust. She promised to trust.

She puts the scroll back into the box and locks it.

* * *

* * *

Jon never meant to name Ghost’s pups, but over the months, he’s come to call them things as they’ve played and tumbled and cuddled. The boy who looks just like his father is Shy for he is a reserved young wolf who keeps to himself and rarely makes a sound. The sand-colored boy is Fang for, as a young cub, he wouldn’t stop biting at Jon’s arm and he’s still rather fond of playful chomps. The girls are both a lovely shade of amber. But one has eyes the color of her fur and is so quick and curious he’s named her Fox, while the other has eyes the color of the moon and is so sweet and gentle for a wild thing, he’s named her Lamb. Eight months old or so, they’re getting big now. Nothing compared to their mother and father, of course, but about the size of Lady last time Jon saw her. About the size of Lady the last time _anyone_ saw her.

He wasn’t there that day, but he can all too easily imagine Sansa’s red-rimmed eyes. Her pink nose. The tears running down her cheeks. 

Shame burns through Jon. He shakes his head to clear it off the unwelcome image.

“Time for me to leave,” he says, rubbing the ears of those who allow petting. “See you in a week.”

  
  


On his way back to the mountain, he rides past the cabin and finds a letter waiting for him. This is what they do now. Whenever Ronne heads out he delivers to Sansa a letter from Jon. And she sends her own couriers to the cabin every so often. He has three of them now, and each time he reads about her preparations for the baby and how her belly grows, the constant weight on his chest eases a bit. Each time he reads them, the image of her sitting on his bench and beaming with joy as she told him about all her hopes and dreams replaces the one that haunts him.

After pocketing the letter, he heads out to his favorite spot by the Iselind to read.

Longclaw always hangs on his hips now when he’s not working. Whenever he settles down, he removes the sword belt but keeps the sword by his side where he can rest his hand on the grip or scabbard. At Winterfell it gave him strength. A way of maintaining a sense of self. Elsewhere it’s felt like a burden. But now, after gradually learning Longclaw again, gripping the hilt once more feels natural. Swinging the sword once more feels like moving one of his own limbs. He’s even sparring with the Claws daily, with both blunt swords and quarterstaves. Nodareoh has even taught them how to fight weaponless and Jon’s taken to it like a crow takes to the skies.

Jon moves his hands to unbuckle the belt so he can sit when the crunching of feet moving over snow approaches from behind. Hand on the hilt instead, Jon turns around.

“And where have you been?” Tormund crosses his arms over his chest, one eyebrow arched. “I’ve come this way many times, but you’re never here. Finally, we set up camp over by the godswood. Scouts told me you were back. Are you avoiding me, crow?”

“I’ve been busy.”

Tormund glances at the half-built cabin before shooting Jon a pointed look. “Busy, eh? What has kept you so busy, then--fucking your cousin?”

Jon’s mouth drops open smartly.

“Haha!” Grinning widely, Tormund throws his arms around Jon and squeezes him tight. “A little bird told me the Queen in the North is expecting. I knew it. I _knew_ it. Wait.” He holds Jon out in front of him. “You _are_ the father, right?”

“Yeah.”

“This calls for a celebration! Where’s your ale?”

“I don’t have any.”

“You don’t have any. You don’t have any…” Tormund narrows his eyes. “Why are you here? You should be at Winterfell. Your woman needs you.”

Jon looks away. “She’s not my woman.”

Tormund’s breath comes out in a soft _oooh_. “You fucked it up. I should’ve known. Jon Snow might be a pretty crow, but he knows nothing about women and now he’s gotten himself thrown out when winter is coming." Tormund throws his arms out, indicating the white world around them. "Look at this blanket of snow. Already as thick as my dick. It’ll come south soon too and she’s all alone and pregnant and _alone_.” Squinting with one eye, Tormund grabs Jon by the front of his patchwork coat and pulls him close. “Do you know how rarely I plan things? Huh? Almost never. But here I was, all cunning like you scheming southern cunts, making you think about babies and fucking and all that shit so you two could finally stop moping and be happy for once--and for what? What did you _do_?”

“What did I do?” Jon pushes Tormund off him. “What did _I_ do? You’re the one who did this. _You_ are!” He gives a shove. “It’s your fault! Why did you have to stick your dumb fucking nose in where it didn’t belong!” Another shove. “If you ever fucking scheme again!” His fists slam against leather and fur. “Everything is ruined because of you! Why did you have to open your big fat stupid mouth! Everything was _fine_. I was _fine_! I was…”

A shuddering breath leaves Jon. He takes a step back, white clouds blooming from his parted lips as he looks up at Tormund who stands still and straight with his arms hanging down his sides. Then those arms fling out and wrap around Jon, pulling him into a mighty bear hug and swaying him gently until Jon goes so limp he’d sag to the ground if Tormund were to release him. But Tormund holds him close, still swaying, even humming a bit as if Jon were Squirrel struggling to sleep, and perhaps he should feel offended by it. Being coddled like this. But he’s too tired to be offended, too tired to be angry, too tired to block out the pain, too tired to do anything but squeeze his eyes shut until the stinging sensation goes away.

“What happened?” Tormund asks softly.

“I fucked up,” Jon whispers.

“Then go back and unfuck it.”

“Aye, that’s good advice.” Shaking his head, Jon pulls away. “I ruined it. _Years_ ago. Because I was too fucking selfish to see anything but my own pain. It’s too late to do anything about it now.”

“It’s never too late. You love her, don’t you?”

Jon smiles sadly. “Can you love someone you don’t see?”

Tormund shrugs, the corners of his mouth downturned. “Blind people fall in love.”

Jon breathes out a chuckle. “Aye, that’s true. How’s your chest? Did I hurt you?”

Tormund throws his head back with a guffaw. “You think these dainty little things would hurt me?” He grabs Jon’s hands and holds them as if Jon were a lady. “Squirrel hits harder.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jon says, pulling back his hands.

“Sansa loves you, Jon. She never would’ve let you put a babe in her belly unless she loved you.”

“If that’s true, she loves me against her will. I’m not going to push her." Jon rolls his shoulders as if to protect himself from more unwanted memories of how he pushed and provoked and tempted, just to hear her say she wanted him. "She deserves better than being stuck with someone like me.”

“And what do you deserve? Hm? Don't you deserve to be loved by someone who _wants_ to love you? Oh, had I known..." Tormund shakes his head ruefully. "I am sorry, my little crow. Lesson learned. I will no longer plan things."

Jon exhales through his nose, smiling. "I forgive you."

"But what about your child? A father needs his child and a child needs his father.”

“Sansa and I are fine. I’m still welcome at Winterfell. She wouldn’t keep the babe from me.”

“But is that enough?”

Jon glances at the Iron Mountains watching over them. “I’ve found a place. Where I think I might belong. As long as I can visit my child… Aye, it’s enough.”

_It has to be._

Tormund stares up the mountain too. “I’ve heard rumors about some settlement up there. New people moving through the true North. They’re good people?”

“Yeah. They’re good people. I’ve made a few friends.”

“You always do.” Tormund claps him on the shoulder. “I hope you’ll still visit me too. Sam suggested Stonedoor as my castle. Said it should be in good enough condition. We’re heading there now. Time to restore the place.”

“Tell me about Sam. How’s my boy doing?”

Once they’ve talked for long enough the sun has begun drifting toward the horizon, they embrace one last time. Then Jon mounts Shadow and rides toward the Iron Mountains. Reaching the path leading up to the network of tunnels, he pulls the letter out of his pocket. It’s so light in his hands. His eyes sting again. He blinks the sensation away and opens the letter and reads Sansa's words in the light of the setting sun.

* * *

A storm has howled for days. Snowflakes fatter than fists have cloaked the air in a shroud of white, thick enough they couldn't see their hand before them. Today the wind finally faded and the snowfall slowed to a stop. Snow up to his armpits, Jon stands before the mouth of the tunnel leading outside and sighs, deeply. It's completely clogged. Someone pants behind him and he turns around to find a red-cheeked Nodareoh trying his best to follow the path Jon trampled.

"We need help shoveling paths," Nodareoh says. "Come, Jon."

"We need to clear the tunnels."

"Ronne said paths."

"When will we clear the tunnels?"

"Wings stay in the nest during winter. I do not think it is a priority."

"I have a baby coming," Jon says.

"I never would have guessed. You are so slender!"

Mouth curved in a faint smile, Jon shakes his head. "I'm to be a father, Dareh. We have to clear those tunnels. I need to be there."

"I understand, my friend. I do." Nodareoh pats Jon's arm. "But in Korpsilmae Valley community comes first--not individuals. First we shovel paths. Then we talk to Ronne, yes?"

Defeated, Jon nods and trudges back to the settlement, trying his very best not to think about that scroll.

* * *

* * *

Sitting on the floor, Wylis points at an apple slice lying on the low table between the divan and the hearth and grunts at his mother.

“If you want it, take it yourself. You’re a big boy now. Come on.” Meera nudges the slice closer to the edge of the table. “Up you get.”

Wylis whines and points and whines; Meera strokes his cheek and kisses his head and tells him that, yes, it’s difficult, but if he wants it, he’ll have to take it himself. Finally, Wylis crawls to the table, grabs the edge, and pushes himself to stand. When his fingers close around the apple slice, the biggest smile in the world spreads on his face.

“See? You did it. And it’ll taste all the better for it.”

Meera sits back on the divan, smiling at Wylis as he munches on the apple with his four tiny teeth.

“Don’t look at me like that, Sansa."

Sansa blinks. She's been staring. She returns her attention to her sewing.

“Life in the Neck is different. If he wants to eat, he’ll have to hunt. And it’s not as if he was starving. We just ate.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Sansa rolls her lips into her mouth with a smile Meera returns. She doesn’t have Sansa’s bleeding heart. And while Meera spoils her son with hugs and affection, she doesn’t coddle. Sansa will, she knows. She’ll have to be careful not to spoil her child rotten.

“When’s he coming?” Meera says. “Jon. You’re getting close now.”

“I don’t know. I’ve not received a letter in over a month. Soon, I hope. There’s still a month to go, but if the baby comes early…”

“Will he stay afterwards? At Winterfell.”

Sansa sits back with a thoughtful hum, resting the baby quilt on her big belly. As boys, her brothers (and Arya) all wanted to be knights and heroes. They wanted the glory promised them by songs. But Jon and Arya both seemed battle weary toward the end; no matter what the songs claim, there isn’t much glory to be found in war.

Jon has nightmares, she suspects. Even though he claims he doesn’t. And he didn’t spar even once when he was at Winterfell and, as far as she noticed, he never wore Longclaw except that first day. But now he’s sparring again. He might not trust her with his pain, but he seemingly trusts the valley people. He’s found peace there. Peace and friends and, perhaps, even a purpose.

“We haven’t discussed it,” she says, “but I don’t think he will. I think he’ll stay in the valley. He’s made himself a life there.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want him to be happy.”

“But what about you? What do _you_ want?”

“Of course it would be nice to parent together, but Jon doesn’t trust me with his pain or his feelings. And I… It hurts and I snap. I haven’t always been very nice.”

She sighs deeply. Sometimes, in the middle of a meeting or petitions or when she’s about to sleep, the memory of all the things she told him hits her like a gauntleted hand in her stomach and humiliation burns red hot within her. When she remembers her stinging words, yes, but even more so when she remembers her heartfelt confessions. Most of the time, though, that feeling of a too-tight corset being removed has stayed with her. She breathes easier. Smiles easier. Sleeps easier.

Sometimes she misses him, she must admit, but by now, after all these years, missing Jon, worrying about Jon feels like an oft-worn dress soft with age and use. It might be threadbare in places but still a comfort for it fits her just right and doesn’t chafe or pinch her the way a new dress can.

It’s comfortable (almost a comfort).

“We might be better off apart, I suspect. Happier. And that will be better for the baby.” Smiling tenderly, Sansa strokes her stomach. “I can’t wait to meet our child.”

“But you still love him,” Meera says so very softly.

Sansa licks her lips and draws in a slow, careful breath. “I don’t know him. I thought I did, but over the years I’ve realized he’s never let me. Can you love someone you don’t know?”

“Love, for me, is never here.” Meera points at her temple. “It’s always here.” She points at her stomach. “What does your gut tell you?”

“That I’m already hungry again.”

“Doing that, are we?”

Sansa rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “I’m not sure it matters anymore. What I feel. After I told him everything, I could breathe again. I could heal. I thought I already had, but I hadn’t. I just ignored the pain and it grew and grew until I burst. But now it’s out. It’s finally lost its power over me. I have no desire revisiting it.”

She looks down at her work, at the baby quilt she’s always dreamed of making, the one with the wolf cub playing beneath the heart-tree. It’s only half finished. Even with Kari’s help to cut all the shapes needed, it taking an age and a half to sew in place all the ruby-red leaves, and the carved face with tears of sap, and the snowflakes dancing on the wind whorls above banks of snow, and the tufts of wolf fur the color of honey.

“Jon will always be important to me,” she murmurs. “He’s the father of my child. But that’s all I need him to be. I am content.” Stroking her fingers over the wolf cub, following the lines of its body and bushy tail, Sansa smiles to herself. “I really am.”

* * *

* * *

They’ve been snowed in for almost two months. Whenever they've started digging a tunnel, another storm has hit and stopped any progress they've made. It’s slow, difficult work that comes undone all too easily.

Luckily, they’re self sufficient. They have their buildings and their livestock made for climates like this. Like Shadow, the horses, goats, and reindeer find ways to graze even in the midst of winter. The community has prepared too and filled their stores with salted meat, smoked fish, preserves, and bread baked with so little water it’s hard and dry and remains edible for six moons or more. It’s surprisingly tasty too. Jon likes dipping it in stew until it’s soft or spreading one with goat butter and slapping on a slice of meat.

They eat well up here. Better than the Night’s Watch ever did. He has no worries they’ll survive this winter.

He does worry he won’t be able to leave in time for the birth of his child. Sansa is due in barely two weeks and he’d like to be there a few days early. Just to be safe.

Sometimes, he thinks about the note he wrote and of her breaking the seal and reading the thing and then he'll turn up and-- The thought leaves him so anxious he can’t sleep. Other times he thinks she’s read it already. That she _knows_. That thought almost makes him throw up. He’s had months to regret those quill strokes and regretted them he has. Love makes you stupid, indeed.

The moment he wakes in the mornings, Jon washes sleep from his eyes with fresh snow and grabs tools to be the first man in the tunnels and dig and dig and dig. They're finally making progress. They're finally close to the other side. This morning, however, waiting for him by the tool shed, is Ronne wrapped in wool and furs, and holding a lantern to light their way through the dark winter morning.

“I’ve been told it’s time. For you to meet our leader.”

“I can’t. I have to dig. We’re so close, Ronne.”

“More people will help today. We’ll get you out in time, don’t you worry. Our leader knows about the baby.”

The big stone temple is still being built, will probably take many years to finish. Perhaps they’ll allow Jon to help here too once he returns. He wouldn’t mind learning more about stone masonry. Torches light their path through a grand hall, down a hallway, and to an open gate leading to a garden surrounded by high walls. A garden full of young trees of mostly weirwood surrounding the largest weirwood tree Jon has ever seen. It rises tall and strong above the rest, its blood-red leaves swaying gently in the breeze, the stars and the moon winking between the branches. There Ronne leaves him and Jon traipses into the garden alone. It’s quiet in here. Torches and braziers illuminate the place and create many deep shadows where he imagines short creatures sneaking and crouching and whispering and spying. The snow crunches underfoot as he weaves between saplings the same size as himself. He's almost at the mighty weirwood when he sees him sitting in his chair, all pale-faced and fur-bundled with a barely-there smile on his lips.

"Hello, Jon. Welcome to my godswood.”

“I knew it was you. I knew it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’ve not been here in quite a while. I returned the other--”

“There’s a way out?”

“Only if you want to go farther north. I had… a ceremony.” Bran blinks slowly before gesturing at the godswood. “While I was away, the Children helped me grow this. They have magic still. Each sapling is grown from a different heart-tree still standing in Westeros--and they're all connected. We repaired the network. We’ll even plant saplings in the south come spring."

“To spy on us?” Jon says with a crooked smile.

“Yes.” Bran looks up at him with blank eyes. “To record history. Among other things. The way it really happens. Maesters are biased. I’m not.”

“This was your plan all along? I thought you were supposed to be king.”

“I had to be king. To make all of this possible. As Brandon Stark I had no power. But as King Bran, I could set it all in motion. This was always where I was supposed to be; I’ll never leave this place again. That’s why I need my Wings. They go where I can’t. I need my Wings, my Eyes, my Claws, my Beaks, my Feathers… All of them. Everyone here has a purpose.”

“Sansa thought you were a cult."

“She's not entirely wrong. I’ve watched history to know how to inspire devotion and establish a community. Humans like following leaders, being initiated into something special, belonging. They see me as a god and I let them. And I let them swear oaths and have dots and use titles and keep secrets and other things that bind them together. It’s easier that way. Your Night’s Watch wasn’t very different.”

“No, suppose not.”

“Did you know that weirwood trees, if untouched, live forever? That one”--Bran nods at the mighty tree--“is the oldest weirwood in the world. The very first one. And the Children of the Forest? They can live for thousands of years. I thought they were all gone, but some still reside in a valley between us and the Lands of Always Winter."

Jon squints at the ever-moving shadows before giving Bran a solid lookover. “What kind of ceremony did you have?”

“A long and very painful one,” Bran says, quietly. “And now I will be here long after you’re gone, after your children are gone and their children and their children.” Bran gazes out over the godswood, eyes faraway. “Part of me is still Brandon Stark of Winterfell. There’s loyalty in blood. House Stark will remain for centuries. I need you. You and Sansa and the generations that follow. Right now the world is war-torn. Many wander, trying to find a place to rest, to heal, to belong. My Wings did not struggle to find people. But time will come when they will. We’ll need House Stark to send us people when needed. People we can train as guards, scribes, stewards, rangers, cooks, greenseers--"

“Like the Watch.”

“As I said, your Night’s Watch wasn’t very different. We’re the watchers of the world, the keepers of history. We will never be able to fully protect the realm from war and strife, but we can help in preventing some disasters. The world doesn’t need another Night King--or another Daenerys Targaryen. Had you not killed her…”

Bran falls into silence. A snowflake lands on his shoulder. Another in his hair. Behind him leaves rustle and Jon catches a glimpse of pale green eyes reflecting the torchlight.

“What did you see?” Jon says. "What would've happened?"

“Ruin. Civilizations wiped out. Culture and history and knowledge turned to ashes. Endless horror. Not as bad as had the Night King reigned, but not far from it. We can’t let it happen again.”

“Did you?” Jon says, nostrils flaring as he looks down at the man who once was his little brother. “Did you let it happen this time.”

“No. I tried setting things in motion to prevent it, but you, Tyrion, Jaime--everyone I spoke to--you made different choices than I anticipated. I can’t see everything, Jon. I’m not omniscient. And I'm still learning my powers and how to wield them within the rules I've been given. I tried and I failed. We all did.”

Jon bows his head, nodding.

“I will need you to speak to Sansa for me. When she’s ready to travel here, we will draft a treaty. You should go now.” Bran holds out his hand and watches a snowflake land on his gloved fingers. “They’re almost done with the tunnel and another storm is coming. It’ll take you twice as long to reach Winterfell as normal. If you wait out the storm, you will miss the birth.”

“And afterwards? Can I return? Can I stay? Even if I take no oath.”

“If that is what you want. You--and any Stark--will always be welcome here."

“Is it what I should do? Did your Eyes send Ronne for me, like they did with Dareh. Is this where I belong?”

“I can't tell you what to do. Choice is a precious thing, Jon. No, we don’t always make the right choices, but that doesn’t mean we should give up the privilege. Now go. Go to the river. If you’re still in the Iron Mountains when the storm hits, you’ll be trapped again.”

* * *

* * *

  
  


Playing with the key around her neck, Sansa stares out her bedchamber window. Snow whirls in the air, tiny little flakes adding to the already knee-deep layer draped over Winterfell. For days, the world has been still. That quiet of winter with bitingly cold air despite the sun burning in a clear blue sky. Her water broke an hour ago. Jon isn’t here. 

She’s not heard from him in two months. 

Maybe he did send her hidden messages in those letters after all. She keeps them bound with a silk ribbon beneath the scroll in the box on her vanity. She unlocks it now, takes out the letters, and reads them one by one, examining every word, every quill stroke like she has so many times before. She finds nothing. Perhaps they dictate what he must write. Perhaps they stand over his shoulder and watch over every word put down on parchment. Perhaps they killed him and someone mimics his hand-writing.

That thought turns her stomach, turns her knees weak, and she has to grip the vanity to steady herself. Showered in the golden glow of the hearth, the scroll lies as alluring as a diamond on the velvet bed, calling to her. _Break me, unfurl me, read me._

A dull ache like moonblood pains spreads in her lower abdomen.

“Wait for your father,” she murmurs, stroking her heavy belly. “Don’t be in such a rush.”

Maybe she should open the scroll. Just to know, to find some hidden message. A clue. Anything. Then she could send men out today, even. Right now. To bring him home. He could be home within a week, if she’s lucky. She picks it up. Runs her thumb over the seal. Just one push and it’ll crack.

Two months and not a word. 

Embroidery waits on the divan. Little grey direwolves will soon lope on the hems of tiny tunics. Maester Wolkan told her to keep busy, to distract herself, until the pain becomes too much to handle. She should pick up her needle, but she returns to the window.

The scroll is still in her hand.

Something’s wrong. 

She was due two days ago. He knew this. He should’ve been here already. Days before, even. He said as much in his last letter.

She almost opened the scroll yesterday. Almost. But winter has come. In some parts of the true North the snow must be waist-deep and they have no Kingsroad. It’s taking him longer to get here. That’s all.

Everything is fine.

She should read the scroll, though. She should. Just to know, to calm her nerves so she can return to her embroidery.

She puts her thumb against the seal--

The door creaks open. Heart in her throat, Sansa whirls around--and breathes out in a relieved smile. There he is, covered in melting snowflakes from head to toe as if dusted with a thousand glittering crystals and cheeks red from the wind’s winter-cold kisses. His eyes fall on the scroll in her hand.

“I haven’t opened it,” she says.

He nods, mouth open as he pants. “Has it started? We were snowed in. And there was a storm and Ghost and I--” He exhales loudly. “You’ve not opened it?”

“I was considering it, but no.”

She rounds the divan and walks to the hearth. Stops as another dull ache pulses in her body. Steadying herself against the mantelpiece, she breathes out slowly through pursed lips. Jon takes several steps forward, hands stretched out as if to protect her from a pain she must endure. The first pain of her life that will result in something good. She waves him off with another smile

“I’m fine.” She holds up the scroll, showing him the intact direwolf seal. “And I don’t need this anymore. Whatever you wrote, you’re now here to tell me yourself.”

Then, to show him that she trusts him, that she trusts he wrote down everything she needed to know, she throws the scroll in the flames, unbroken, furled, unread.


	19. The Hour of the Wolf

The flames eat the unwanted confession, the unbroken seal melting and dripping down on the logs below. Only when the fire is fed and the source of months of worry is turned to ash does Jon return his gaze to Sansa. She smiles shyly at him, her enormous belly hanging low and heavy on her tall frame beneath a wool robe and cotton nightgown. Her braid rests on her shoulder, gleaming like copper in the hearthlight, and he doesn’t know what to say or do. He just stands there like a bleeding idiot staring at her while his heartbeats and breathing return to normal.

She saves them from the uncomfortable silence by asking about Ghost. Jon mentioned him, she says, even though he has no recollection of it. So he shares how Bran told him to ride to the Iselind where Jon found Ghost and his pack waiting for him. And that leads to his telling her about Bran while she wraps herself in a scarf and a cloak, insisting she must go meet Ghost _now,_ because it's been too long and she needs a distraction from her contractions. 

“And Maester Wolkan said walking is good for me,” she says and even though Jon is so worried about her slipping his stomach is twisted into knots, he proffers his arm and leads her outside.

The touch of her hand on his arm burns through all the layers of wool, leather, and fur between them.

(Her waddle is the most adorable thing he’s seen in years.)

Close to the gates, she stops and releases another slow breath through her mouth, the air blooming cold and white at her lips.

“Is it bad?” he asks, suppressing the impulse to rub her lower back because he doesn’t know whether his touch is welcome.

“I can withstand quite a lot of pain. This is nothing.” She gives him a small smile and waddles on. “I’m so relieved Bran was the leader. I’m glad he’s safe.”

“Aye. You must come visit. Bran wants you to.”

“You’re going back there, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.” Jon slows his pace until they stop. “I believe in the work they do and I want to do my part. But I’ll stay here for two weeks. Bond with the baby. Help you, if you need me. But then I’ll go back. I could visit for a few days every month. And come down for namedays too. The baby’s and yours and mine. And maybe, once they’re older, they can visit me too. And you. If you want.”

“That sounds very well thought out.”

“Yeah, I…” He starts walking again, guiding her down the path to the heart-tree, following the tracks of a direwolf pack. “I’ve given it some thought. Would that be all right? Maybe three days a month? My visiting Winterfell.”

“You can stay for as long as you like. You know that.”

“I’ll talk to Bran about a rookery. Can’t imagine he wouldn’t--”

Sansa cuts him off with a gasp, her hand clutching his arm. Alarmed, he looks at her to see whether the pain has gotten worse. But Sansa isn’t breathing out slowly nor knitting her brow as if enduring a contraction. She’s watching the heart-tree with wonder in her pale blue eyes, the same way she looked out over the world when he showed her the view from the top of the Wall so many years ago now. Today, though, it’s not the Wall enchanting her but an amber direwolf lying beneath the red-white branches of the heart-tree in snow trampled into a firm cushion by both man and animal.

“Who is that?” she whispers.

“That’s Lamb.”

“Lamb,” Sansa says through a laugh. “She doesn’t look like one.”

“No,” Jon says, smiling, “but she’s sweet like one. I used to tell her she’s like a lamb in wolf’s clothing.” He shrugs. “Just kept calling her that.”

“I like it. Lamb.”

Lamb rises, shakes off the snow powdered over her fur, and approaches slowly. But before she’s reached them, Ghost and the rest of his pack come out from deeper inside the godswood. Even his mate.

The first time Jon met her, he knelt in the snow and stayed calm while she took her time greeting him, sniffing at him and licking into his mouth before she accepted his presence. Now, after Jon has helped Sansa kneel in the snow and she has hugged Ghost and whispered to him how much she misses him, the she-wolf gives Sansa the same treatment as she gave Jon only much more gently, as if she knows Sansa is carrying a pup of her own. She even allows Sansa to rub her belly before she leaves to let the pups say hello. Fang comes first, then Fox and Lamb, and finally Shy, all of them sniffing and greeting Sansa carefully under their parents’ watchful eye. When Fang nudges Sansa a bit too hard--not enough to knock her over, but enough to make her sway--Ghost even bares his teeth with a low growl purring in his throat and Fang backs away.

“Thank you, Ghost,” Sansa says, scratching him behind his battle-torn ear. “You’re a good boy.”

As the direwolf pack retreats to play among the trees of the godswood, Jon and Sansa stay for a moment, standing closely together beneath the heart-tree where lovers say their vows as if becoming husband and wife when they’re not and never will. But they _are_ a family--him and her and the baby. They are a pack, just as much as the wolves they’re admiring. Even if they never have another--

_“I will be here long after you’re gone, after your children are gone and their children…”_

Children. Bran said _children_. Jon glances at Sansa. Will they have more? No. Why would she ever invite him into her bed again when their coupling made her feel so awful afterwards? Why would he ever accept? He’s done hurting her. Bran is not omniscient and people make their own choices. Yes, different possibilities branch out before them. But Jon and Sansa--not fate or a Three-Eyed Raven or gods old or new--will decide what branches to prune. What branches to _keep_. “Your children and their children,” that’s just something people say.

One child is more than Jon ever thought he could have. One child is more than enough both for him and for House Stark to live on. He shouldn’t be greedy.

When they return to her chamber, Kari is there to fuss over Sansa. She helps her out of her clothes and boots, and ushers her to the divan where she puts a heated wheat bag behind the small of her back. Then she pushes in a cart of food and drink, and starts decking the table with skewers of pigeon with mushrooms and onions, brown oatbread still warm from the oven, roasted turnip wedges, berry tarts smaller than his palm, and a bowl of black olives. All food Sansa can easily eat with her fingers while draped on the divan like a decadent princess--and she does, immediately digging into the bread and the turnips.

“Maester Wolkan is still resting,” Kari says, pouring Sansa tea. “And so should Her Grace, once she’s gotten some food in her.”

“And so should you,” Sansa says, smiling.

“And I will.” Kari stirs a dollop of honey into the tea and puts the cup in Sansa’s hands. “There. This should help with the pain, he said. I’ll be across the hall tonight if you need me, Your Grace.”

She turns to walk out the door only to stop and shake her head when she sees Jon standing two steps into the room like a little boy who can’t tell whether or not he’s needed. Without a word, she removes his swordbelt, helps him out of his coat and boots, and ushers him to the divan too. Then she leaves the two of them alone with a final reminder that she’ll stay close.

“He’s resting?” Jon asks, grabbing himself a pigeon skewer.

“I told him to when my water broke.” Sansa eats a berry tart in two bites and sucks the powdered sugar off her thumb. “This might take all night. I want him to be well rested. And I know I should sleep too, but I’m so excited.”

“Can I help?”

She grabs the bowl of olives and puts it on her stomach before propping one into her mouth. “Just distract me.” 

Jon hums. “Have you thought of names?”

“I have but… Have you?”

“I’ve always wanted a son named Robb.”

Sansa’s eyes dull and she drops the olive she just picked up back into the bowl. Jon’s chewing sounds unnaturally loud to his ears. He forces down the bite with a mouthful of ale and waits for her to tell him what’s wrong. Waits for long enough that the silence becomes uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, finally. “I used to want that too but… Every time I think about the names we could choose, all the people we loved and lost.” Her lashes flutter over glossy eyes. “Robb, Theon, Rickon, Eddard, Benjen, Rodrik, Jory. Catelyn, Lyanna, Jeyne, Beth-- Jeyne just disappeared. Littlefinger sold her, I think. And Beth? She was here when Ramsay… It was before I came here, but I heard the stories. He sent her out into the woods and chased her with his hounds!” She draws in a trembling breath and squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head as if to ward off unwanted images before continuing, “I wrote a list because I wanted to honor them, but every name made me cry and I threw it in the fire. They all died such horrible deaths and long before their time. It’s as if we’re cursed. I don’t want to think about that every time I say my child’s name. I don't want to think about how easily Starks die. Am I being stupid? It might be the pregnancy making me stupid.”

“No. You want to move forward. Start anew.”

She nods, dabbing the corners of her eyes with her fingers. “Something new. Something that doesn’t make me think of death and pain.”

“What about something from a song? One of your favorites.”

“What? Florian or Jonquil? King Florian Stark.” Sansa laughs, shaking her head. “That sounds ridiculous. And no Targaryen names.”

“No, definitely not.”

While finishing their supper, they talk about every name they can think of but after the lives they've had, most of them remind them of something unpleasant. Waymar was slaughtered by the Others and so was Alys. Alliser made Jon's life hell at the Wall. Robett abandoned House Stark after Jon bent the knee. Will was beheaded for being a deserter. Ros was brutally murdered by Joffrey. Torrhen was the king who knelt--and that’s not something they need to remind the North of when Jon knelt too. Soon it seems as if they're mostly just listing people they've met and disliked (Karl and Orell and Myranda and Roose and Janos and Bernadette) and the atmosphere becomes so gloomy, Jon finally suggests Jaime for a boy or Cersei for a girl, since they were so popular and all, just to cheer Sansa up and earns himself a big smile that warms him down to his toes.

“Maybe we’ll know once he’s here," she says. "We’ll take one look at him and know.”

“Tyrion. Tyrion Stark.”

Sansa laughs and throws an olive at Jon he catches with his mouth. “Oh, impressive.”

“I am, yeah.” 

Her smiles fade with a soft hum and she puts the bowl back on the table. “I think I’ll have that rest after all. Would you mind reading to me? There’s a book on my nightstand.”

When he returns to his spot on the divan, book in hand, he pats his lap out of habit and she lays her round, swollen feet there. Absentmindedly, he rubs them with one hand while reading aloud from _When Women Ruled: Ladies of the Aftermath_ about the Winter of Widows when the Dance of Dragons had taken the lives of so many husbands, brothers, and sons that hundreds of Houses were ruled by women. It doesn't occur to him what they're doing (and where it used to lead) until she moans softly. But her eyes are closed and she looks comfortable and relaxed, so Jon keeps massaging and reading and then, suddenly, she’s asleep after all. Knowing he should rest too, he lifts her feet off his lap and lays them down gently on the divan.

By her bed stands her sewing basket with a quilted blanket of white and blue and red folded at the top. He lifts it up and lays it out over the bed to admire the work in progress--and now understands what had her so arrested in the godswood.

Perhaps Sansa has some greensight of her own. Perhaps Ghost knew Jon would return to the true North and decided to leave something of himself here, to watch over Sansa and the babe: a new generation of direwolf for the new generation of Stark.

Smiling to himself, Jon folds the quilt back into the basket, lies down on the bed, and drifts off into dreams of Lamb playing with a dark-haired child in the godswood of Winterfell.

* * *

* * *

Above the furs, drooling into her pillow, lies Jon. He can’t have slept well (or much) on his journey here from the mountains and Sansa folds the furs over his body as best as she can and lets him sleep some more. 

It hurts now. Badly. Without pause. She drags herself out into the hallway and knocks on the door. Kari opens, bleary-eyed, but springs into action the moment she sees Sansa’s face. Soon Wolkan arrives, examines her quickly, and tells her they’re two hours away and that they’ll start preparing everything.

Jon sleeps on. Her body longs to lie down next to him, to curl up in his arms and feel his warmth against her back, but she stays on the divan with a reheated wheat bag and tries relaxing into the pain like her mother told her to when they saw each other last. As if some part of her knew they’d never meet again, Mother sat Sansa down the night before they left for King’s Landing and prepared her as best as she could for the marriage bed and childbirth. Many a Tully have been born in the calmer parts of the river; many a Stark have been born in the hot springs--and after five children Lady Catelyn Stark said with confidence: “It’s water birth or the birthing chair, Sansa. Don’t give birth in a bed, no matter what that Grand Maester Pycelle says. They like it because it’s easier for them not you. It’s like rowing upstream.”

While the thought of welcoming the new Stark into the world beneath the stars, surrounded by water and trees and snow, sounds magical to Sansa, everything else about giving birth in the hot springs worries her. She doesn’t want to disrobe in the cold and the dark nor stumble back inside afterwards wrapped in furs on unsteady legs with her newborn baby in her arms. She doesn’t want to walk across the courtyard in front of curious people who’ve sneaked from their bed to get a glimpse of the little prince. She wants privacy. And so the servants carry a round tub into one of the empty rooms opposite her chambers. They light a fire in the hearth and candles all over the room until it’s cast in a warm red-gold glow. The handmaidens make sure the water is neither too hot nor too cold, and that there’s always cool water to drink, and help Sansa undress and step into the tub. While they all do their respective duties, Jon stands in the middle of the room, looking so much like a lost helpless puppy Sansa’s heart clenches for him. He even stammers out, “Do you want me to leave?” as if he truly believes he's in the way. The pain is almost unbearable now, even in the soothing warm water, and it muddles her brain enough that she can't speak, can't tell him how much she needs him. She can only shake her head and wave at him to come closer. She can only fumble after his hand and hold on tight as she follows her instincts and Maester Wolkan’s guiding voice that penetrates the fog pain has wrapped her in.

Jon and Sansa’s child arrives during the hour of the wolf, when everything is quiet and dark and otherworldly. She’s the first one to touch the velvet-soft skin, to pull that little body from her own body and lay the babe to rest on her chest. And when the little one draws in the first breaths of air and releases the first frail cries, Sansa hears an answer echoing all around Winterfell. She hears the soft pack howl of the direwolves.

“They know,” Jon murmurs in her ear. He’s hanging on the rim, gazing down at their child with so much love she can’t help the tears trickling down her face. “They’re welcoming her.”

“Her?”

“Aye. Her.”

“A girl,” Sansa whispers. “It’s a girl.”

She leans back against the rim and takes Jon’s hand and lays it over their child’s back before laying her own hand over Jon’s. As if her invitation encouraged him, Jon moves in closer still, close enough that his beard rasps against her shoulder and his forehead brushes her temple and his breath wafts over her cheek. He even wraps his other arm around her, holding her and the babe close, keeping them safe. And this _is_ love. It’s not in her mind or her gut or even her heart. It’s in all of her, every part of her, warm and bright and tender. It might not be the love she once dreamed of, but it’s a _good_ love. Better than any love she’s ever known. And for a moment she allows herself to bask in the feeling of being one with her little pack while the direwolves fill the night sky with their song.

* * *

* * *

For the third time today, Jon stands in a room like a bleeding idiot while the others rush around, tidying up the room, fluffing the pillows, feeding the fire, and fussing over Sansa until she’s tucked into bed with the babe at her breast. Kari gushes over how well the princess latches on; Ella wheels in a new cart full of food; Maester Wolkan gives Jon orders to make sure Sansa eats, drinks, and rests--and then they’re all gone.

It’s just him now. Him and her and the baby.

He should leave. Once Sansa has finished her fruit juice and the bread she’s nibbling, she must rest. His work is done. Not that he did anything, really. He held her hand. Rubbed her back. Helped her to some cool water to drink. He should leave. And yet he stays.

He can’t stop staring at his daughter. She’s the smallest thing he’s ever seen. So delicate with pink skin and black hair and dark eyes that now are closed as she sleeps on her mother’s breast.

He can’t stop staring and his chest feels so full he doesn’t know what to do with it.

He should leave. Sleep in his own chamber, close enough that Sansa can call for him if needed.

Sansa lies on the right side of the bed. There’s plenty of room for him, if he wants. As if she designed it that way when she lay down.

(He doesn’t know what to do with that either.)

“We have a daughter,” Sansa murmurs. “I was so sure it would be a boy.”

“You did so well,” he says with a voice hoarse from emotion. “You were so strong.”

She smiles sleepily. “I’m exhausted.”

“Yeah, I should let you get some sleep.” He gestures at the door over his shoulder. “I’ll, uh, I’ll sleep in my chambers tonight. In case you need me. Just give a shout. Or knock on the wall or--”

“Or you could sleep in here.”

Jon’s eyes move between the bed and the divan. He feels his heartbeat all the way down to his stomach. Perhaps she’s lying on the right side because she always does. It doesn’t have to mean--

“Jon,” she says, softly. “If what I confessed made you uncomfortable, I understand. But I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m not trying to make this into something it’s not. You’re her father. You’ll only be here for two weeks. I want you to spend as much time with her as you can. I know she won’t remember this, not really, but perhaps some part of her will. Isn’t this what you did with Shadow? You slept with her night after night so you could bond. So she would know your scent and the sound of your breathing. Don’t you want that with our daughter too?”

“Of course I do.”

“If you want to sleep somewhere else, I understand. But if you want to stay, there’s more than enough room for the three of us.”

He glances at the hearth. He doesn’t like it, sleeping in fire-heated rooms, but last time he slept with Sansa… Oh, he slept well. Better than he had in years.

Despite the pain that followed, the memory makes him smile and his fingers move to the laces of his breeches and suddenly he’s in his smallclothes and crawling beneath the furs.

Their daughter sleeps so sweetly. He aches to touch her, the curve of her cheek, the slope of her nose, the whorls of her ear. He wants to kiss her too and breathe in the scent of her downy head.

“I used to dream about you with a babe,” he murmurs, half drunk with love and only vaguely aware of the words spilling from his lips. “I’d lie down by the Iselind and look at the stars and think of you. All of you. Bran ruling wisely. Arya exploring the seas. And you… Always with a babe. With children. That’s how I slept. With Shadow, aye, but with all of you too. I’d listen to the rush of water and think about your lives and it made me happy. It helped me sleep.”

“It sounds peaceful.”

“It was.”

“What does it mean? Iselind. Is it the old tongue? It’s pretty.”

“There’s a song. The Thenns always sing it, because they lived at the foot of the Iron Mountains and the Iselind flows from there.”

“Will you sing it?”

“No, I’m not a singer,” Jon says with a chuckle. "But I'll tell you."

In ancient times, he tells her, before man had settled in the true North, there was a giant named Isern who lived in the mountains at the top of the world. All alone, he was, and he liked it that way, liked the silence and the solitude. But then, one night when he was particularly tired after a long day of herding mammoths and mining ores, a strange noise echoed in his mountains. It sounded almost like crying--and giants can't stand crying. He stuck his fingers in his ears and tried to sleep but to no avail. The crying was so sharp and piercing he heard it no matter what he did, even when he filled his ears with moss. For several days and nights, the crying continued and Isern got angrier and angrier the less sleep he got. He searched through every cave and tunnel and crevice for the source of the noise so he could make it stop but found nothing. Finally, he jumped down to the moorlands below the mountains to search there too. And on a mossy rock beneath a tree, he found a girl, a Child of the Forest, weeping over wilted flowers and looking so forlorn all his anger drained away in an instant.

Concerned, he knelt by the girl and asked what ailed her. And the girl, whose name was Lind, told him it was her duty to tend to the trees and the bushes and the flowers on the moor. But they had gotten no rain for moons and moons and her garden suffered. She thought, if only she cried hard enough, she could water the plants with her tears. But it wasn’t enough and all around her, everything she loved was dying. By the end of her story she had moved Isern to tears too--and she had stolen his heart. He fell so in love with the girl, he tore out a chunk of rock from the mountain and carved into the earth the shape of a tree. Its roots started at the Bay of Ice and the crown reached the mountains where Isern lived. Then he cracked the mountain open and water sprang forth and filled up all the furrows he’d carved until it flowed out in the Sunset Sea. Now Lind could fill her pails with water and bring life back to the North, life it so desperately needed for all animals and creatures to survive the long winter that was steadily approaching.

“The mountains are named for him,” Jon says. “Isern means iron. And the river is named for them both. Lind means linden tree.”

A smile blooms on Sansa’s face, slow and beautiful until she’s shining. “How do you spell it? With or without an e at the end?”

“According to the old maps at Castle Black, without an e.”

“Then we can spell it with an e."

“You want to name our daughter after the Iselind?”

"I do," Sansa says, eyes glittering with tears. “She’ll be strong like iron, and full of life and heart like the linden tree. She’ll be of the North, like a Stark, and she’ll be of the river, like a Tully. Isn't it perfect?"

Iron is the metal of winter, Jon knows, dark and strong to fight against the cold, and somewhere deep in his memories there’s something about a linden tree he can’t quite catch. Not when he’s so warm and sleepy and full of love. Not when he’s aching to be closer to his daughter. To his little Iselinde.

“Can I kiss her?” he murmurs.

“She’s your daughter. You should kiss her as much as you like.”

Holding the baby close, Sansa gingerly rolls over on her side and lays the baby in the small, cozy space between them. Just as gingerly, Jon leans in close and brushes his lips over the baby's cheek and breathes in deeply of a scent that’s both entirely new to him and yet feels so familiar. He kisses her little ear too and her temple and the crown of her head, his nose prickling as his eyes fill with tears. With one last kiss to her tiny hand, Jon pulls back. He still can’t take his eyes off her. He never knew it was possible to love someone this much. He never knew someone could be this perfect.

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Sansa says in a low voice. “I’ve been awful to you.”

He rests his head on the pillow, blinking away the tears until his vision clears. “I’ve not been that great either.”

“We have to do better.”

“Aye.” He blinks softly at her, lips curved in a small smile. “Truce?”

“Not truce. _Peace_. For her.”

“Peace. For Iselinde.”

Sansa smiles. “You like it too?”

“Aye. I like it too.”

She yawns and burrows her face into the pillow, breathing out contentedly as her eyes slide shut. “Did he win her heart? The giant.”

“I don’t know. Either the story doesn’t say or I never heard the end of the story. All I know is that he loved her so much he was willing to change the world for her.”

Sansa hums. “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

He’s heard those words from her before, back when he didn’t know what she meant. When she gave him jabs and hints he never picked up on. Over the months in the valley, things like that returned to him every so often. Little signs of her love and her jealousy and her pain. And every time his heart fluttered and broke all at once.

She loved him once and it wasn't enough. It changed nothing. But it would have, if only he’d known. It would’ve changed everything. And now it’s too late. He made the wrong choices, pruned the wrong branches. All he can do now is nurturing the one he chose--and making sure he prunes the right ones next time.

“But,” Sansa says, eyes fluttering open for a beat before closing again. “Iselinde doesn’t need to know that. Not yet. We’ll have to make our own ending. For when we tell her the story.”

“Aye. We will. A happy ending.”

With an exhale, Sansa’s lips part softly in a faint smile. Then she sleeps as sweetly as their daughter who’s safe between her mother and father, sharing their warmth and breathing in time with them, her tiny tummy rising and falling in a calm steady rhythm. Jon still can’t stop gazing. He’ll never sleep again. Not when she’s so pink and beautiful and small. Everything about her is so delicate, her lashes and her fingernails and her tiny little feet. 

He never felt her kick. He never felt those kicks grow stronger and stronger until her mother’s belly became too small for a growing body and Iselinde decided it was time to see the world. 

She’s only a few hours old and yet he’s missed most of her life.

“Never again,” he whispers and cups one soft foot just to feel it against his palm, finally. “I won’t miss anything again. Not your first smile, not your first laugh, not your first word, not your first steps. I promise. I prom--”

Regret chokes the air from his lungs, holding them in a cruel grip. Two weeks, he said. Two weeks because he is a coward who never stopped loving when he should've smothered those feelings the moment he felt them stirring in his heart. Two weeks to bond and then he’ll go back to doing things he found so important only days ago but now seem like the most insignificant things in the world.

How could they compare to his daughter’s smile? How could he live up there in the Iron Mountains and build and train and guard when she needs him more than anyone?

He can stay for as long as he likes, Sansa said, but it's an easy offer to make when she assumed he wouldn't. Peace, she said, but how easy would it be to maintain that peace when he and Sansa never learned how to get along?

He leans in again and noses at his daughter's sleep-warm skin, at the scent that's a little bit him and a little bit Sansa and all Iselinde. How could staying with her ever be a branch he needs to prune? 

How could he _ever_ leave her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While outlining this story, I was trying to find a new name for their baby. One that wouldn't remind them of trauma. And while looking at Nordic names, as I tend to do, I found Iselinde and thought it was so pretty. And when I saw what it meant, it just felt perfect for a Jonsa baby. It shaped quite a lot of the story, as I'm sure you can tell lol. Anyway, I know it's not an actual asoiaf name, but I hope you like it too
> 
> https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Iselinde


	20. Let Sleeping Wolves Wake

Iselinde’s little chin moves as she eats. Her tiny hand flails, pushing against the breast like a kitten’s kneading paw, and as her milk-full belly pulls her closer to sleep, her eyes blink more and more slowly. Just like a baby’s hair color can change, so can their eye color, Sansa knows. One day Iselinde’s eyes might be brown like her father’s or hazel like Arya’s or dark blue like Mother’s, but now, in the light of day, her eyes are the slate grey of the sky before a thunderstorm. 

She’s so beautiful, so utterly perfect, so deserving Sansa's full attention, that focusing on Maester Wolkan and understanding the words coming out of his mouth is one of the hardest things she's ever done. He’s seated on a stool by her bed, hands full of documents and a scroll from Yohn Royce, briefing her on today’s council meeting Sansa didn’t attend. She won’t attend tomorrow’s meeting either or the one after that or the one after that--and not only because she’s constantly sleepy and foggy-headed. For now, queenhood can wait. For now, all she wants is to be a mother.

“These two contracts need your signature, Your Grace,” he says. “And here are a few letters in need of replies. I’ll return for them tomorrow. Take your time.”

He rises and turns around to look at Jon, who’s hiding on the divan. When Wolkan knocked on the door, Jon lay half-naked in bed with his nose in the book he’s come to read aloud for Sansa when she breastfeeds, trying to catch up to where she is. She’d barely opened her mouth to say _enter_ before Jon had jumped into his breeches, pulled on a tunic, and draped himself over the divan. Only when Wolkan examined Iselinde did Jon come closer to listen, but the moment the maester handed the baby back to Sansa, Jon quickly returned to the divan.

“You’ll keep an eye on Her Grace, I trust?” Wolkan says and Jon nods. “Good. She needs plenty of food, drink, and rest. Her body must recover.”

Jon’s eyes widen. A slight pink tinges his cheek. Sansa hides a yawn with her hand, only listening with one ear as Wolkan bows to take his leave, addresses her correctly and then accidentally calls Jon _My King_ before hurriedly correcting himself with a murmured _my lord_ and slipping out the door. The moment it closes behind him, she snuggles down until she's lying on her side with Iselinde next to her and still latched on even in her sleep. It’s contagious, Sansa’s found. Whenever Iselinde falls asleep while eating, Sansa feels her own eyes droop.

“Do you think he meant…” The featherbed dips beneath her as Jon returns to his side of the bed. “He doesn’t think I’d--does he?”

"What?" Sansa murmurs.

"That we... Seven hells, you just gave birth! What kind of monster does he think I am?"

Sansa forces her eyes open. Jon’s still in his clothes, sitting atop the furs with his back against the headboard. “No,” she murmurs, “I don’t think he meant that. He knows you’re a good man.”

“Am I?” Jon murmurs so quietly she’s not sure whether she imagined it or not. “You think he’ll ever stop calling me… _that_.”

“That?” Iselinde has let go, and Sansa lays the baby on her back between them and tucks her breast back into the nightgown. “I didn’t know it bothered you that much.”

“It’s been years.”

“He told me once that when Ramsay returned to Winterfell from the battlefield and everyone got ready to defend the castle, Wolkan prayed for us to win. He stood in a chamber overlooking the courtyard and prayed to the gods that every arrow Ramsay aimed at you would miss. That you would kill him. It wasn’t just Winterfell we saved that day. It was him too and every person working in this castle. And when you were named king? When he knew he’d get to be a king’s maester? He was so proud. He’ll always see a king when he looks at you, Jon. You’re his hero.”

“Aye, fine hero I am. He knows Iselinde is mine. He probably even knows we used to… Frequently too.”

“He’s my closest adviser _and_ my healer. Of course he knows. And he still admires you.”

“Why? It’s not very admirable, is it. Doing what I’ve been doing. I wouldn’t admire me if I were him.”

“He knows I never intend on marrying again. Most do. It’s hardly a secret.”

“Still,” Jon says, brushing his thumb over the gold lettering of the title carved on the leather-bound book.

“Do you like it?” She hides another yawn. “The book.”

“I do. It’s interesting.”

“Really? You used to scoff at me for preferring reading to fighting in the mud with the rest of you.”

“I didn’t scoff,” he says, softly. 

“You did. ‘Books are for those too craven to experience the things life has to offer!’ That’s what you said.”

“I think that was Theon.”

“But you agreed. And you _wanted_ us to hear. I remember it clearly.”

For two weeks, rain had drenched Winterfell and none of the children was allowed to play outside. By the time the clouds finally cleared enough for the sun to shine, even the girls were so bored and restless Septa Mordane allowed them to read outside for a few hours before they had to go back to embroidery. Of course, Arya sneaked away to do something unladylike, but Sansa, Jeyne, and Beth went to the godswood and settled down on a blanket with their books. Rather close to where Robb, Theon, and Jon were practicing swordplay. That’s when one of the boys scoffed at their reading. It might’ve been Theon, Sansa doesn’t remember, but she does remember that Jon glanced at them as to make sure they heard them. She remembers a smirk curving his lips.

“We did, yeah," Jon says. "You girls were eavesdropping. You had the whole godswood at your disposal, but you had to sit down right where we were.”

“ _We_ didn’t. _Jeyne_ did. She was sweet on Theon and she always wanted us to be as close to you as we possibly could. Well, until we caught you and Theon fighting. She was positive you were fighting over her, and when you won, suddenly Theon didn’t seem so dashing anymore. The next day she confessed to me she’d barely slept all night because she’d fallen hopelessly in love with the bastard instead and she couldn't stop thinking about how terribly unlucky she was. ‘Oh, Sansa, please don’t think ill of me. I can’t help it! I saw his split lip and I swooned.’” Sansa smiles at the memory. “She loved it. Two handsome boys fighting over her.”

Jon lets out a chuckle, shaking his bowed head and running his palm over the book. “We weren’t. We were fighting about you.”

Sansa’s stomach swoops with a burst of something she can’t decide whether it’s hope or discomfort. But Jon’s staring at the book, not her, and his cheeks have retained their normal color. The confusing sensation in her belly dissipates as quickly as it appeared.

“Theon was convinced you were madly in love with him,” Jon says. “You’d asked him something about his favorite color?”

“I did. Jeyne wanted to sew him a favor for when you played tourney, but she didn’t have the courage to ask him herself.”

“Well, Theon thought you wanted him and he wouldn’t stop bragging about it. He said Lord Stark would arrange a marriage, and that he would take you home to the Iron Islands as his bride once you’d flowered. And I told him that would never happen. He wasn’t a good enough match. And he said at least he wasn’t a bastard and…” Jon shrugs one shoulder. “I punched him. And then we were in the mud.”

“So you weren’t really fighting about _me_. You were fighting about--”

“Yeah.” As if the memory of his days of being a bastard physically drags him down, Jon bows his head deeper. But then he straightens with a loud inhale and forces a smile on his face. “But now I prefer reading to fighting in the mud too.”

“All because there was nothing better to do in the wilderness.”

“Aye.” He taps his fingers against the book. “Shouldn’t you read that scroll?”

“What scroll?”

Jon turns to her and comes closer and closer, one arm reaching around her, and for half a heartbeat she forgets everything but how close he is and the way he smells. Her eyes even flutter closed and she can’t help but breathe in the scent of him as he hovers above her, close enough that she feels the heat of his chest against her face. But then he sits back down and hands her a scroll. Right. The one from Yohn Royce. She breaks the seal, unfurls the scroll, and reads it quickly before handing it back so he can read it too. Arya has been sighted in Gulltown by one of Royce’s men, boarding a ship to Braavos.

“Well," Jon says, "at least she’s alive.”

“I hope she comes home soon. I want Iselinde to know her aunt.”

“If she comes home, I’ll have to fight in the mud after all.” He gives Sansa a lopsided smile. “She’ll try to kill me for putting a babe in her sister’s belly.”

All without marrying her too.

He doesn’t say it, but Sansa feels those words hanging in the air, heavy and awkward. That’s twice now that their conversation has veered dangerously close to their lack of wedding vows, as if having a daughter reminded him of his sense of honor. As if that sense of honor will drive him into doing something foolish. 

“She’ll take one look at Iselinde and forgive you,” Sansa says, quickly. “Now read. I need a nap. Your voice does such a good job putting me to sleep.”

“Oh, thanks,” Jon says, but there’s warmth in his eyes and his voice, and he starts reading aloud about Sharis Footly ruling Tumbleton and restoring the battle-shattered town after the war.

Not that Sansa truly listens. She knows the book well and lets the northern burr of Jon’s voice lull her to sleep barely a handful sentences into the chapter. When she wakes, it’s to the mouthwatering scent of grilled meat. It’s already dark out and her stomach is growling and her hair is a tangled mess. But Iselinde is hungry and her needs come first and Sansa sits there with her daughter in her arms, staring wistfully at the spread of food someone has wheeled into the room. Food Jon is already eating of by the divan with the book still in his hand--but when the bed creaks under Sansa as she sits, he turns around and gives her a smile so tender she feels it deep in her belly, and starts filling a plate for her without her having to say a thing.

“Want to eat in bed?” he asks.

“I suppose I should say no, but I’m too tired to care.” 

Grinning, Jon puts their plates on their respective nightstands before returning to his side of the bed. There he undresses, settles in, and shares what he just read as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that they would eat in her bed together, talking about the political history of Westeros while wearing next to nothing. When their daughter jerks her arms in her sleep, he smiles down at her and lays his finger in her tiny hand, and keeps talking while gesturing with his free hand and letting his gaze wander about the room in a way that's casual rather than avoidant. Despite her growling stomach, Sansa forgets about her plate. She's never seen him this at ease without ale in his body and a feast simmering around him--come to think of it, she's never seen him this at ease at all--and it's mesmerizing.

When he hid away in the North, before she realized he’d never loved her, Sansa used to dream about them. She imagined him riding in through the gates and taking her in his arms and confessing. She imagined embraces and chaste kisses and vows beneath the heart-tree. She imagined giving him sons and daughters they'd watch from the balcony as they played in the courtyard the way her mother and father once watched their children play. A little girl’s innocent dreams. A shallow view of a marriage by someone who had no idea what it entailed despite having been married twice. She never dreamed about the more intimate details. She never dreamed about making love or sharing a bed or even a life. She never dreamed about _this_. But this is what it would be like, she realizes. This is exactly what it would be like--and it’s too much. It’s _too much_. Her body reacts so strongly she can’t breathe and she moves to the vanity where she grabs a brush to detangle the crow’s nest that is her hair while forcing her lungs to start working again.

“Want me to do it?” Jon asks. “I just need to wash my hands.”

“So you _are_ my handmaiden now?”

“I’m just trying to help, Sansa.”

His voice is softer than the furs on her bed and it would be so easy to give in. To let him groom her the way he grooms Shadow, to bond with him the way he prefers, to fall into something resembling a marriage.

But he’s leaving in eleven days. They need boundaries this time, not indulging in physical pleasure. Not even the innocent kind. He’s _leaving_.

So she smiles at him over her shoulder and rejects his offer as sweetly as she can.

She must be strong now. She won't make the same mistake twice.

* * *

* * *

Blood trickles down Arya’s face, drips from her jawline, and pools in the ashy rubble beneath her. Shattered rocks pin her to the ground. Jon’s trembling hands lift rock after rock to to free his little sister, to save her. But whenever he removes a rock, another one appears. She’s drowning in debris, gasping for air, pleading at him with her eyes. “I want to live,” her eyes say. “I’m too young to die. Save me, Jon. Save me.” Then the desperation, the light in them, dies and they stare unseeing at the ash-and-smoke grey sky. Jon grabs her shoulders to shake life back into her, but it's too late and his cry rings out over the broken city, over fire and ash and blood, over the hearth-lit room where it mingles with the small cries of a newborn baby.

Chest heaving, Jon sits up in bed. Sansa stands by the divan, eyes moving between him and Iselinde as she tries getting the crying baby to accept the breast. 

“Are you all right?” she asks. Behind her the hearth glows as if hungry to devour her and the babe and leave nothing but ashes behind.

A shudder travels through him. “I’m fine.”

Jon flings the furs aside. He’s drenched, his unbound hair slick against his neck, the sheets stained from his sweat. He can’t let his family go back to sleep in that bed. He starts pulling at the sheets until it’s all bundled up in his arms, but he’s not a steward and this is not Castle Black and he has no bleeding idea where to find new linen.

“Jon, come sit down. Kari will handle that.”

Right. Servants. He drops the linen on the floor.

“Jon, talk to me.”

“I need air,” he mumbles and flees the chamber.

He’s halfway down the hallway when he realizes he’s still in nothing but smallclothes, and ducks into his old chamber where he dresses before heading out. He visits Ghost and the pack in the godswood. Stops by the stables to give Shadow a cuddle. Walks out on the fields and stares up at the star-strewn black for a moment, reminding himself that everyone he loves is fine. Everyone. They fought the worst battle of their lives and they all lived. Then came King’s Landing and they survived that too. Arya survived. Even though she was in the midst of it, she survived. She’s alive. She’s fine. They all are--and so is he. He’s _fine_.

  
  


When he returns to Sansa’s chamber the bed is made, but she’s still on the divan--and now he’s clear-headed enough to see why. On the table lie the documents Wolkan brought her along with ink, a quill, and blotting paper. With one hand tucking a sleeping baby close to her, she holds parchment with the other and reads with tired eyes. She must’ve been up for a while already when he woke.

He sits down in his usual spot. “Need help?”

“It’s all right,” she says without taking her eyes off the parchment.

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“I’m aware.” 

“How long have you been up?”

“I’m not sure.” She picks up another document and pretends to read it. “I woke up because she was hungry and I couldn’t fall back asleep. Could just as well get some work done.”

“I can help.”

She lowers the parchment and looks at him. “So can I. If you talked about it--”

“Sansa." He sighs deeply. “Can we just do this so you can go back to bed?”

“I used to have nightmares too. I know what it’s like.”

“I don’t have nightmares. This was an exception.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth. Now, what can I do?”

“Talk to me.”

“I’m _fine_. How can I help?”

She stares at him for a beat and he half expects her to tell him he can sleep elsewhere, but instead she hands him Iselinde and goes back to work in silence. Once or twice she asks him to hand her something on his side of the table, but otherwise they don’t communicate at all until they return to bed.

She does let him return to bed, though, and she does murmur goodnight. And when morning comes and they break fast together while chatting amiably, he’s foolish enough to think it's forgotten. But then they curl up on the divan--him with the baby in his arms; her with the quilt she’s almost finished--and suddenly, without his even noticing where they were headed, they’re back to talking about nightmares. She did it in that roundabout way of hers, where she talked about something entirely unrelated until he said just what she needed to steer the conversation where she wanted it to go.

Sansa has lured him into a trap where he has a content baby in his arms and can’t leave--and she has the gall to look at him calmly, innocently while his blood is boiling.

“I hate it when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“You know what. Playing games instead of asking plainly.”

She lifts her chin. “I only do that because--”

“I know why you do it!” It comes out louder than he intended. After a quick glance at the still-content Iselinde, he lowers his voice and speaks calmly. “I don’t need an explanation. I need you to stop. It makes me feel like you’re just manipulating me. Like I’m Lord Baelish and not…” He eases out a breath. “You push too hard, Sansa. If I treated the horses the way you treat me sometimes, they’d never let me near them. Sometimes you need to let the horse come to you.”

Her eyes flit between his. “And will it? Will the horse ever come to me?”

“It has before, hasn’t it?”

“That was a long time ago. Ever since the horse returned from-- No. Ever since the horse became king, it didn’t need me anymore.”

“That’s not true.”

“No? It’s how it feels.”

“I just don’t need to talk about everything. Talking is…” His daughter looks up at him, waving her little hand, and he gives her his finger to hold. “I’ve never been good at it. Especially not--” He swallows. “I’m not good at it.”

“Is that why you’re always running away?”

“I don’t run away. I just… I need time.”

“To do what?”

He shrugs, pursing his lips.

Sansa lets out a soft breath and moves a touch closer to him, the movement drawing his attention from their daughter back to her.

“I know you’re leaving soon," she says, "but we’ll be in each other’s lives forever. We can’t just declare peace and think it’ll work out on its own. Peace takes work. A lot of work. It’s something I do every day, Jon. Not just with Drustan and Tormund either--with every kingdom. With every House in the North. With my people. I’ve even patched up our relationship with Yara Greyjoy--and that was neither pleasant nor easy. Peace takes work--and I’m willing to do the work. But…”

She sighs, looking away. Then she shakes her head almost imperceptibly and looks back at him with her chin dipped and her lashes fluttering in a way she surely knows is so pretty it makes men stupid.

“You’re right,” she says.

“I am?”

“You are. If I had approached the leader of each region the same way, I would’ve gotten nowhere--especially with Yara Greyjoy. I change my way of communicating depending on the person, but I haven’t with you. I’ve taken everything personally and I’ve felt rejected and it hurt me and I stopped seeing what you needed. And sometimes when you’re upset, you need to be alone. Don’t you?”

Jon ducks his head, nodding.

“Then I’ll respect your need for space. But if you use it as an excuse to run away from any argument or conversation you don’t like--”

“I won’t.”

“If you’re just saying that--”

“I’m not. Still sitting here, aren’t I?”

A small smile graces her lips. “But if you hadn’t held Iselinde, wouldn’t you have left already?”

“Maybe,” he mutters, like a sullen little boy, but it only makes Sansa’s smile grow and suddenly he’s smiling too. Suddenly they’re smiling at one another and he doesn’t feel sullen at all. “I promise I won’t.”

“Then I promise too.”

She moves back to her end of the divan, then; he wishes she wouldn’t. He wishes their promises would bring them closer together. That she’d rest her chin on his shoulder so they could gaze at their daughter together. He wishes they could cuddle like a family, like a wolf pack, and reknit the bonds between them, make them stronger. But she needs a different kind of space than he does.

She avoids touching him, he’s noticed. Their cuddle after Iselinde was born was an exception; now, whenever he comes to close, Sansa shies away. She even averts her eyes when he undresses. She declines any offer he gives to brush her hair or rub her shoulders or feet when she’s tired. So he stops offering. He takes to wearing a sleep tunic in bed even though he hates it. He’s mindful of her personal space and always keeps at least two handbreadths between them no matter what they do. The only time they touch is when one of them hands Iselinde to the other--and if she wants that to change, she’ll have to come to him.

Not that he thinks she will.

Sometimes she mentions that he’ll leave soon. She’ll ask him what he wants to eat on their last night together or to deliver a letter to Bran for her or roughly when he’ll leave or something else to which he has no answer other than a shrug or a nod or a murmured word.

 _I want to stay_ , his heart says, but she expects him to leave, she wants him to leave, she needs him to leave.

And he should, shouldn’t he? He believes in Bran’s work. He believes in protecting the world. Isn’t this exactly what Davos told him to do: make the world a little better after all the shit he’s done. He _should_ atone. The life he leads now...

Before her coronation, Sansa read _When Women Ruled: Ladies of the Aftermath_ to prepare herself and ever since she’s read it once a year. By now she knows it well and whenever they finish reading a new chapter together, he can't wait to discuss it with her. They're the most interesting conversations he's had in his life. In the mornings, they first lay Iselinde atop the quilted heart-tree blanket and then Jon teaches Sansa the movements Nodareoh taught him, helping her wake up properly, before they lie down with their daughter to relax and talk about her and her development as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world (and it is). After their midday meals, they bundle up in wool and fur with Iselinde wrapped to Sansa’s chest, and head out for a stroll in the godswood or on the snowy fields. Ghost always finds them then, and sometimes Lamb joins them too, and Jon becomes more and more confident Sansa has a touch of the greensight. Then Sansa and Iselinde return inside for council meetings while Jon spends a few hours with Shadow until it’s time for supper. And every night, he falls asleep with his family knowing that the first thing he’ll see come morning, is Sansa smiling down at their daughter as she feeds her--and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

She smiles so often now. After they reunited at Castle Black, whenever she laughed or smiled, it was in a muted sort of way. As if she always held back, always maintained a distance between herself and not just the people around her but her own happiness too. But now when she smiles, she’s _radiant_.

The life Jon leads now is _good_. More than good (better than he deserves). And it’s selfish. And yet his heart still says it wants to stay for it’s a greedy, selfish heart.

But if he tells her what his heart desires and she says no it’ll end him, and his lips refuse to move.

* * *

He’s supposed to leave today. Experience has given him the skill of eating anything anywhere anytime--and yet he can’t get down even a bite of his breakfast. He’s vaguely aware of Sansa attempting to converse, but like no food can pass his lips no words can pass them either. Silence settles in the space between them and he waits for her to break it. He waits for her to ask him to leave, ask him to stay, ask him anything at all, but all she does is shooting him discreet looks. She's waiting for the horse to come to her, he supposes, but the horse can’t do anything but fall into their daily routine and hope she won’t shoo him away.

They’re such simple words, really. _I want to stay._ Simplest words in the world. And she wouldn't say no. Would she? She wouldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t. He can stay for as long as he likes, that’s what she said. And she does seem happy. Isn’t this the life she dreamed of once?

_“We could love each other chastely. Never marry other people. Just you and me in Winterfell for the rest of our days."_

Isn’t that what this is? Only with the baby she always wanted too. 

No, she wouldn't say no. That's what he tells himself when she and Iselinde go to a council meeting and he rides out to the mere to find some clarity in the frozen surface. She wouldn't say no and he's a man and he can ask her and he returns to Winterfell determined. Walks into her chamber determined. Sits down on the divan determined. But then she returns too and by now the silence has sealed his mouth closed like a scroll. If he breaks that seal it'll snap as loudly as lightning lashing the sky when some boyhood instinct tells him that if only he stays quiet and doesn't make a fuss and is no bother to anyone, she'll let him stay. So they share another meal in silence and go through their evening routine in silence and suddenly she’s in bed with the baby and he unlacing his breeches to change into his sleepwear and--

“Jon,” she says and his fingers stop (his heart stops). “I forgot the book on the table. Can you get it?”

A breath whooses out of him, short and sharp. He grabs the book, steps out of his breeches, and lies down and, _fuck_ , he forgot the put on the sleep tunic. Clutching the book, he stares up at the ceiling and listens to his dumb fucking heart beating so hard she must hear it too. Should he get up and put it on--or should he take a page from the book of the bastard of Winterfell who once pretended to be a dragon and curled up on a cold stone floor in the broken tower, pretending to fall asleep?

Or should he just read? That’s what he usually does now. Nodding to himself, he finds the page where they left off.

It’s easy for him. Remembering the page number. She uses bookmarks, he’s noticed, a leather strip carved with a beautiful pattern of gilded roses, but he always remembers. It became a habit. He taps his fingers against the cover.

Aye, once upon a time, he pretended to be a dragon. He snarled and growled before falling asleep, all to avoid spending time with the prettiest girl in the North who made him feel like dirt simply by existing, by being perfect. And he’s kept doing it, hasn’t he? He’s snarled and growled. He’s run away and avoided and deflected. But he doesn’t want to be a dragon. He wants to be a wolf.

Father used to say the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. It’s not true, Jon knows. He and Arya and Bran and Sansa all survived apart--but it wasn’t easy and they weren’t happy. They needed their pack. They needed to _belong_ \--and if Jon wants to belong...

“ _At some point you have to commit_ ,” Ronne’s voice echoes in his head. “ _You gotta give a little, Jon._ ”

He has to. He _wants_ to.

“I didn’t start reading in the wilderness,” Jon says in a voice hoarse and unsteady and not quite his own. “I started reading in King’s Landing.”

He doesn’t dare looking at her, but she’s quiet enough he can hear the soft breaths of their sleeping daughter and he feels her full attention aimed at him. So while staring at the ceiling like a coward, he tells Sansa about leaving the throne room with blood on his hands to find Arya. Arya who’d been in the city when horror rained down on them, her hair caked with blood and ashes, her skin marred with scrapes and bruises, her eyes dull from having witnessed things no one should ever have to witness. (Eyes as dull as his own.) But he never did find her. Grey Worm didn’t trust him. Grey Worm knew what love looked like, what worship looked like, and he’d kept a watchful eye on Jon for quite a while. He was waiting for him outside the throne room and when he saw the blood on Jon’s hands, the empty sheath at his hip...

“I tried fighting, tried getting to Arya. If anyone caught her, they'd kill her for what I'd done, but they were too strong, too many.”

He was thrown into the dungeons--and then it was just him and the dark damp cold of a naked cell. Twice a day, an Unsullied brought him food and emptied his bucket, and that was all he ever saw of other people.

He had a window, though. A bliss and a curse. He saw daylight come and go until he lost count of the days passing, but at least he heard birds. At least he heard the ocean waves. He’d close his eyes and cling to that, those sounds of life, and tell himself Arya was safe. That they all were safe for, surely, Grey Worm would’ve thrown it in his face if they weren’t. Surely, if they had caught Arya, they would've dragged her into Jon's cell just to execute her in front of him. But no one ever came.

At night, though…

It was harder to listen to sense when all he saw was black. It was harder to listen to sense when he closed his eyes and saw unspeakable horrors.

“I think I was going a bit mad. I tried talking to the Unsullied who brought me food. Just a few words. Just something. The one giving me breakfast struck me when I tried, but the one bringing me supper? Sharp Blade. Missandei had taught some of them the common tongue and we’d spoken before, on the ship to White Harbor. Just soldier talk. Jokes. Swapping stories. Techniques. Things like that. So I tried. Just talking. About nothing. How was your day? How’s the weather? What’s in this stew? Meaningless things.”

He never struck Jon, but he didn’t answer either. At least not for days. Then, one day, Sharp Blade told him in hushed, rushed words about Tyrion and his constant nagging for books (and how no one liked him well enough to give him one) before putting the tray on the floor and leaving the cell. By then, Jon's mind was so dulled he didn't even understand Sharp Blade had hinted at something--not until he picked up his plate of paltry food and found a book beneath it. In the dying daylight, he could barely make out a word so he smuggled it under his tunic and hugged it close as he slept. The next day, after breakfast, he pulled it out and found a collection of beautifully illustrated bedtime stories that once belonged to Tommen Baratheon. After that, whenever the sun rose, Jon followed the beam of light slanting in through the window as it moved with the hours and pored over that book, savored each word, stared at each illustration until they were permanently etched in his mind. And when the sun set, he drifted into sleep while clutching the book like a child clutches a doll to stave off nightmares

Not that it worked. Nightmares thrive in dank cells and so do fears. But during the days he had his window. When King’s Landing burned, everything lost its color, everything was grey, and the inside of his cell wasn’t much better. But when he looked out the window, he saw the pale winter sky and it was blue. (A blue that reminded him of Sansa’s eyes, but he leaves that out.) Aye, he had the window and the sky, and the ocean waves lapping against the rock and the winter birds trilling their songs, and he had the books Sharp Blade brought him. And, as the weeks passed, it kept him from losing his mind.

“Those books saved me. Sharp Blade saved me. It’s why I’ve kept reading. Why I sleep outside. I can’t stand being alone in small rooms. And if there’s a fire? If I feel that heat, it reminds me…” He shudders. “But when I sleep with someone--with Ghost or Shadow or Tormund or you--I can sleep in a stall or in a room or by a fire. If I sleep with someone, it’s all right. I’m all right.”

He nods to himself, swallowing down the lump forming in his throat. He’s all right. He releases a slow, careful breath and wills his body to relax the way Nodareoh taught him. Then Jon rolls over on his side and finally dares to look at her.

Tears glitter on her cheeks, in her pale blue eyes. When she blinks, fresh tears fall down to wet her pillow. She licks her lips and draws a breath as if to speak, but instead of giving him words, she reaches out and takes his hand. And as her soft fingers close around his coarse skin and their hands rest together on the furs their daughter sleeps on, right below her tiny pink feet, it’s better than any words anyone could ever give him.

He’s supposed to be on his way back to the mountains. He’s supposed to lie beneath a spruce tree, beneath his sleeping skins, halfway between Winterfell and the river, and fall asleep alone in the cold winter night. But Jon lies in a soft bed, beneath softer furs, and falls asleep with his daughter’s scent in his nose and with Sansa’s hand in his own, in the warmth of the bed they share, him and her and the baby. He falls asleep with his pack, right where he belongs.


	21. An Illusion of Armor

When they were mischievous little lordlings who couldn’t pass a mud puddle without jumping in with both feet, Bran and Rickon shared this chamber. Located right across the hall from Mother and Father’s room, it gave them quick access to safety whenever thunderstorms raged over Winterfell or monsters lured under their beds. Some nights, after Old Nan had told a particularly gruesome story, they got company from their sisters as they padded into Mother’s and Father’s room late at night to pile up in bed like a pack of wolves and find comfort in Mother’s hugs and in Father’s voice assuring them that Old Nan’s stories were nothing but nonsense.

One day, it’ll be Iselinde’s chamber, Sansa imagines. One day servants will carry in a bed and a dresser and a wardrobe and toys. But for now the chamber is empty save a couple of stools and the copper tub standing in front of the hearth. Since the divan, which eats up most of Sansa’s chamber, she’s taken her baths in here instead. Since Jon returned, she needs these moments every few days more than ever. He’s always around, always so gentle and sweet and sometimes looks at her in ways that would’ve confused her had she not muted the fanciful parts of herself years ago.

Soaking alone in the tub, in a quiet room cast in faint golden light and inky shadows, she can make sure those parts muted. She can remind herself of the past and the pain and how she loved in ways he'll never love her. She can encase her heart in solid steel.

Solid steel that, when she dried and robe-draped returns to her chamber and the people in it, softens into well-worn leather that offers only the illusion of armor.

He’s lying in bed with Iselinde in his arms, gazing down at her with the most loving expression Sansa has ever seen. And in the softest of voices, he tells their daughter about a day when a soup delicious from going two days without food filled Sansa’s belly and a warmth intoxicating from going years without tenderness filled her chest.

“And then your mother said, ‘Where will you go?’ And I said…”

He looks up at Sansa then--the smile for their daughter remaining on his lips, the love for their daughter remaining in his eyes--and it pierces Sansa’s leather armor all too easily. It fills her with a longing to slip out of her robe and curl up with them beneath the furs, to pile up like a pack of wolves, to find comfort in the warm scent of them, to be the family she always dreamed of having.

“Did you have a good bath?”

“That’s not what you said,” she says in a teasing tone and goes to the divan where paperwork awaits her on the table.

“No,” Jon says and she hears a smile in his voice, “I said, ‘Where will _we_ go.’ Because I knew I had to protect your mother. That’s what I do. It’s my duty in life, to protect. And your mother--do you know what she does?” The bed creaks as he moves. “She protects too, the whole North. Aye, very impressive.” He sits down on the divan, Iselinde a captivated audience in his arms. “And one day, you’ll do the same. You’ll be Queen in the North and you,” he says, angling her so he can show her the table full of papers, “will use these. A lot.” He lifts her closer to his lips and whispers, “It’s really boring. But I’ll teach you how to ride and fight with a sword. You and I will have fun.”

“That would be just my luck,” Sansa mutters with feigned bitterness. “Another wild Stark who prefers fighting in the mud.”

“Maybe she’ll like both books and fighting.” He kisses Iselinde’s forehead with a hum. “Won’t you, sweet girl?”

Sansa picks up a ledger to focus on her work. She could sit in her office, of course, but she wants to spend as much time as she can with Iselinde, even if it’s like this, working in front of the hearth with the baby in Jon’s arms. And he’s right. This is what she’ll do one day, their daughter. And if she grows up knowing that, when she has a child and a husband of her own--

Sansa sucks in a breath and stares firmly at the numbers on the page. They share a bed and a daughter and some sort of a life, but they are _not_ husband and wife. They’re not.

“Sansa? Do you need help?”

“No.” She straightens her back. “Not unless you’ve acquired a sudden interest in planning feasts. I’m going over the budget for Iselinde’s welcoming feast.”

“I’m good at numbers.”

Slowly, she turns her head to look at him. “You want to help?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’ve never shown an interest before. I’ve always arranged it all myself. After we took back Winterfell, after they named you king, after the Night King… You never even asked me about what food we’d be serving.”

“After we took back Winterfell, I didn’t think it was my place. And the one celebrating my coronation? You insisted on doing it yourself, as a gift to me, so I let you. And after the Night King…” He shakes his head and exhales loudly. “Those days after the battle are a blur. I can barely remember a thing.”

She can, though.

At first he slept for a whole day and night, like many others. But once he woke, she paid close attention to everything Jon did to see whether what Daenerys had unknowingly revealed was true: that _he_ was the one manipulating. In the five days between battle and feast, not once did the two interact. Mourning ser Jorah, Daenerys spent most of her time in her chamber with Missandei and, occasionally, Tyrion and Varys as her visitors.

But Jon never made a single attempt to reach out or comfort even though he made an effort to spend time with every other person in his life. During the days, he bonded with his men and the Free Folk, and helped with the injured and the fallen; in the evenings, he supped with his loved ones before turning in early for the night. It was as if Daenerys didn’t exist--and Sansa’s confidence in Jon grew with each passing day until the feast.

It’s been years since she’s allowed herself to think back on that night. At first because it brought her so much hope and she needed to forget him. And then, after she had realized a thing or two, because it brought her so much shame and she needed to let go.

They flirted that night, she and Jon--or so she was drunk enough off wine and victory and naive love to believe. She even laid a hand on his knee once, emphasizing something she said, and when his gaze snapped to hers, she foolishly thought her touch affected him the way his affected her. He could’ve spent the evening with anyone he wanted, she told herself. Sam or Gendry or Davos or Arya or Bran. Anyone. But the moment their plates were cleared, Jon turned to her and there he stayed. Tormund came to _them_.

Granted, when she caught Daenerys sharing an intimate smile with him, Sansa's faith in him died in an instant and her heart broke into a million pieces. She felt so pathetic and sorry for herself she even sat down with the Hound just to feel wanted by someone for a spell. Then some sense returned and she left him too. The rest of the night, she ignored Jon and dulled her heartache with more wine until she just sat, glum and quiet, on a bench, staring into nothing. Yohn Royce approached her then, and discreetly suggested to her that perhaps Lady Stark should retire. So she did. But she’d barely left the Great Hall before Jon was by her side, his hand cupping her elbow and his lips so close to her ear that she shivered. 

“You shouldn’t walk alone,” he murmured. “Not when there are so many drunken soldiers about.”

Then he escorted her out onto the courtyard and toward the stairs leading to the Keep and she couldn’t stop beaming. Even though he was drunk himself, even though he must’ve been having a good time with his friends, he paid enough attention to her that he saw her leaving. He _saw_ her. Finally. She was so happy she would’ve floated down the hallways hadn’t Jon anchored her to himself by keeping her hand on his arm with his own hand. And he was smiling at her and walking so close and joking about Tormund and she didn’t want it to end. She wanted _more_.

When they reached her chamber, his hand slid down her forearm to her hand, and he held it like a knight wanting to place a chaste kiss on his lady love’s knuckles. Her heart beat so loudly she just barely heard him rasping out her name. Holding her breath, she waited for something to happen. A whispered confession. A quick press of his lips to hers. A wish to follow her into her chambers. Something. _Anything_. 

She did get a kiss. A brotherly kiss to her forehead and, as if she were a child, a reminder to be more careful in the future before he ducked into his own chamber.

She’s examined that night so many times. Back when she still deluded herself, she believed he wanted to kiss her but caught himself before anything happened. But as time passed, she realized she imagined things that weren’t there. She realized Jon never saw _her._ He only saw duty and the promise he once made her in a candle-lit tent.

She realized why he looked so nervous.

“You were going to tell me, weren’t you,” she says quietly. “The night of the feast.”

“What?”

“Who you were. You were going to tell me. After the Night King. When you walked me to my chamber.”

He looks back down at their daughter. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You were drunk. And so was I. But I had enough sense to remember I should to tell you and Arya at the same time.”

“You had Bran tell us.”

“Yeah. I… Yeah. I couldn’t. I was…” He looks away, into the hearth where fire eats at birch logs. “I was afraid you wouldn’t see _me_ anymore. Sam saw it as a weapon, who I was. As a way to avenge his family. And she just saw a rival. A threat. And I kept waiting for--” Jon purses his lips and drags a hand along his jawline. “I don’t know. You kept saying you saw me as a Stark but… I never really did. And then it doesn’t matter, does it? How many times someone tells you that you are.”

“But what about now? Do you feel like one now?”

“My daughter is a Stark. That’s all that matters.” His quick smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “So a feast. When?”

Sansa blinks but quickly finds herself. “I was considering early spring, to make it easier for our guests, but that might clash with your nameday.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“You don’t want to celebrate? You can have a feast here. I’ll arrange everything. You don’t have to lift a finger.”

“No, I don’t want a big thing. Just the three of us. That’s all I want.”

Sansa ducks her head to hide a smile. “If you like.”

“Yeah, I’ll meet everyone else at Iselinde’s feast anyway.” He rubs his eyebrow. “Who are we inviting?”

“I have a long list,” she says, going through the papers spread on the table until she finds it, “but you’re free to add to it. Perhaps your friends from the valley? Do you think Bran would come?”

“He told me he’d never leave the valley again, but I don’t know how literal that was.” Nodding to himself, Jon skims through the list before handing it back with a smile that looks too casual to be so. “So I’ll finally get to meet your lover.”

“Finally?”

“I’ve been curious.”

Sansa gives him a tired look. “You have to be nice to him.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? He treated you well, didn’t he?”

“He did. He’s a good man and a dear friend.”

“Good.” Jon looks down at the baby. “She’s doing the mouth thing. She’s hungry.”

He moves to hand Sansa the baby, but her nose tickles then, and she holds up one hand to stop him while the other finds a scrap of fabric in her sewing basket. She sneezes twice into the makeshift handkerchief and blows her nose before accepting the baby.

“Kari has complained about a sore throat,” she says with a sigh, “and if she gets sick and I get sick… I have so much work to do.”

“I’ll help, Sansa. In any way I can. All right?”

“Thank you. But I’ll visit the Maester. He’ll brew something for me.”

As always, Jon accepts her no without protest. But when he picks up a book and settles in with a sigh, she can’t help but think it sounds like disappointment. He gets restless sometimes, she's noticed. As if he's itching for something to do. But another sneeze interrupts that thought. She wipes her nose and returns her attention to her daughter. She’s over a month old, now, and while her eyes are still the same shade of grey, her hair has started falling out. Rickon’s did too, Sansa remembers. He was born with black hair that fell out and gave way to pale curls that darkened into light brown over the years. And she herself was born with dark brown hair that fell out and gave way to red locks.

“What color hair will you have, sproutling?” she whispers, stroking the baby’s head. “Hm? Perhaps you’ll--”

Another sneeze hits. Iselinde, who had just begun to drift off, opens her eyes and mouth in shock before letting out a wail. Sansa soothes her with murmured words, telling her it was only a sneeze, that’s all, and helps her latch on again.

For three days, Sansa sneezes and sniffles, and during those days the people around her develop their own symptoms. On the fourth day, she wakes up with a sore throat and considers staying in bed. She has petitions all morning and doesn’t look forward to all that talking, but then a maid knocks on the door to deliver breakfast and terrible news: Kari, Ella, Wolkan, the rest of Sansa’s council currently at Winterfell, and a handful more people are all in bed with a high fever and a rattling cough.

Sansa groans--only to be cut off by another sneeze. 

“Can I help?” Jon asks, carefully.

“You can, yes,” she says and he perks up, sitting up properly in bed. “Everyone’s sick. I’ll have to record everything myself. I need you to hold Iselinde for me.”

Jon’s face falls. “What?”

“I’ll sit in the Great Hall for hours, Jon. I need someone she trusts who’ll keep her calm.”

“I can write.”

“I know you can. But sometimes Iselinde gets upset and Kari has to take her on a walk to calm her. It's easier if I write. Will you hold her or not?”

His mouth hangs open as if he waits for an answer to fall out on its own. Then he shuts it firmly and nods. “I’ll hold her.”

She _could_ ask him to write of course. He’s the only one in the castle who’s not sick, doesn’t have something more important to do for four hours, and who’s educated enough to know how and what to write down in their records. But she wasn’t lying about the walk and, more importantly, after everything that happened six years ago…

No. Rumors spread and grow too easily. If people get any reason to believe she’s letting Jon into a position of power or influence, she’ll risk stirring up unnecessary unease.

She’ll record the petitions herself.

* * *

* * *

Once upon a time, Jon was king. Now he sits behind Sansa with a baby in his arms like a wetnurse while the people--people who came into this very hall to ask for his ruling only a handful years ago--cast him discreet glances or even outright stares at him for doing a woman’s job. But let them stare. Of all the bad things he’s done in his miserable life, this is not one of them.

Jon rolls his shoulders, sits up straighter, and stares right back. 

The first time Sansa told him Iselinde would join her for petitions and meetings, he kindly pointed out that it was no place for a baby. But she just looked at him and said, “I know you sneaked into the Great Hall at least once when you were here last time. Didn’t you notice how things have changed?”

He didn’t notice, no. But he couldn’t tell her the truth--that he only had eyes for her because he loves her desperately and took the opportunity to gaze at her in peace like a fucking creep (and that he watched her with both pride and the smallest touch of envy)--so he only gave a shrug.

But now, sitting by the hearth where he gets a good look at the crowd gathered in the Great Hall, Jon sees what Sansa meant.

Back when he had petitions, men comprised most of that crowd. There was always the odd woman there, of course--a widow or spinster or an eldest daughter and heir of a House--but almost never children. As women mind children, they were at home with their mothers. Today, though, a motley crowd fills the Great Hall. Young and old. Rich and poor. Men and women--and many of the women have children with them. Mostly babies who are nursed openly by their mothers as they wait their turn. And when Iselinde shows signs of hunger, Jon hands her to Sansa who lays the baby to her breast and feeds her without anyone raising a brow. And, later, when the baby cries but not for the breast, and Jon starts fumbling with the wrap, sweaty and stressed over the disruption, he soon realizes no one glares. No one sighs. No one cares. Babies cry sometimes, they seem to think. It’s a noise as natural as someone clearing their throat or murmuring, “How long’s this gonna take, then?” to a neighbor.

So Jon relaxes, manages to get Iselinde into the wrap, and heads outside where the fresh air and the calming motions of a brisk walk lulls her back to sleep.

Sansa’s yearly read of _When Women Women Ruled_ makes even more sense to him now. After the Dance of the Dragons, there were hundreds of them leading their respective Houses. And while they ruled, things changed. Not always for the better, granted, and rarely for good. But Sansa is sensible and competent and, hopefully, this time the changes she implements will last.

“You don’t have to look so impressed,” she says over supper when he compliments her. “It was Eddara Tallhart who started it. She fell pregnant and wanted her child legitimized. And with so many women being the head of their House after the war, and so many widows owning farms and running shops… It all happened rather naturally. I barely did a thing.”

“You did. You are just what the North needs."

She blushes at that, the loveliest shade of pink tinting her cheeks, and he wishes he could kiss those cheeks until she angled her face and pressed her lips to his. He wishes he could show her just how much she means to him. It wouldn’t be welcome, though. They might spend their days and nights together, but they still never touch if they can help it. So Jon just smiles--and when she smiles back, warmth spreads in his chest. It might not be a kiss, no, but it's still more happiness than he thought he'd ever have. It's its own kind of bliss.

* * *

* * *

Robin Arryn needs a bride. That’s the official reason as to why Yohn Royce shows up the following morning. He’s on his way to Karhold to visit the late Arnolf Karstark’s many daughters (the oldest now ruling a prosperous House and the two youngest of appropriate age, pretty enough, and with an impressive dowry each that makes them prettier still), and decided he couldn’t pass Winterfell without leaving well-wishes to the Queen and a small gift for the little princess.

Sansa knows, though, from the looks Royce shoots Jon and from the way he acknowledges him with a curt bow (as if to show the world he’s only bowing because he has manners) that Jon is the real reason as to why Royce came.

They settle down in her office, Royce and her, where she offers mulled wine and cakes warm from the oven for him and tea with honey for her and her sore throat that's rather raspy after yesterday's petitions. Then they engage in a charade where both pretend he’s only here to exchange pleasantries, and discuss House Karstark and what would be the best connections for her cousin. Royce even mentions that Robin has tried his best to rile him up by insisting on marrying a wildling woman. To steal one, even.

“I wouldn’t worry, though, Your Grace. Lord Arryn takes great pleasure in provoking me. That’s all. I suppose it should be expected. He never had the chance to rebel against his parents. I’m the closest he has.”

“I have met both Lysara and Arsa Karstark many times. They’re pretty well-bred girls, but they’re also Karstarks. If he wants something like a spearwife but with manners befitting a great lord’s hall, either girl is a good choice. Perhaps my lord can show his disapproval upon returning to my cousin? It might make him more eager to accept one of them.”

Lord Royce smiles at that. “Very clever, Your Grace. I think I shall.”

Then he quiets, puts down his cup of mulled wine, and visibly gathers himself. Sansa lays down her cake on a plate and brushes crumbs off her fingers on a napkin. 

“The princess is a very beautiful child,” he says. “She has the Stark look.”

“Yes, she has.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, Your Grace, has there been a private ceremony? Between yourself and Jon Snow.”

“We’re not wed, no.”

“Ah.” Royce taps his gloved fingers against her desk. “Will you be?”

“I have no intention of marrying.”

He exhales quietly. “But he’s staying here? At Winterfell. Indefinitely.”

“What is your concern, my lord?”

“Even if you don’t marry, if he stays here, he’ll once more be part of House Stark in some manner or other. And while he might’ve been _raised_ a Stark, he is Targaryen by blood and, some would argue, in character. Targaryens cannot be trusted and his past actions would suggest--”

“Your future Queen is also Targaryen by blood. Are you, my lord, suggesting my daughter won't be trustworthy?"

Royce widens his eyes before bowing his head. “Certainly not, My Queen. You are your father’s daughter, through and through. I have no doubts you will raise the princess well.”

Sansa arches an eyebrow. “The way my father raised Jon?”

Royce pauses, takes a careful breath. “Do I have My Queen’s permission to speak frankly.”

Sansa nods her consent.

“One of my greatest regrets in life was never sufficiently raising my concerns when your aunt married Lord Baelish. I never trusted him and I still lie awake at night, wondering whether I could’ve changed anything had I been braver. Whether I could’ve saved Lord Arryn from orphanhood.”

“Surely, my lord is not suggesting…”

“No! No no, Your Grace. I have no doubt Jon Snow loves his family. Despite it all, he chose you in the end. But I _am_ worried about your safety. After what Your Grace has been through, and after that ghastly business with the Bettleys, no one judges you for turning to a man you’ve known your entire life to get an heir. There’s… sense to that, I suppose. And what goes on in one own’s chamber concerns no one but the people in it. It's all legal, after all. In the eyes of men and the gods. However, there are still those among your people who feel betrayed by Jon Snow, who feel he never understood the North’s need for independence. You worked diligently to save his reputation, and some love him still, I have no doubt, but others…

“He has little love in the Vale. Lord Arryn’s men never took to him the way the northerners and the wildlings did. And your cousin has never met him at all. We have yet to sign all the papers, Your Grace. If Jon Snow becomes your husband, if you rule together one day, or if he gets a seat on your council, we deserve to know before the final decision is made. We want to be ruled by _you_ , not Aegon Targaryen. And, among those who are already your subjects, I daresay there are many who feel the same.”

“You’re afraid of an uprising?”

“I have no reason to suspect anything at this moment. But I had barely set foot in White Harbor before I heard he attended petitions yesterday. Some found that worrying. Others… You’re a woman, Your Grace. There will always be those who would prefer a king. And if Jon Snow shows an interest…? Giving him a seat on your council or letting him rule by your side simply wouldn’t be advisable either way. Not if you want to remain in power.”

“I have no intention of doing either.”

“And _he_ knows this, I trust?”

“Of course,” she says, chin tilted high. “And I trust that you will do your part in calming any worries that might arise. You’re a powerful man who’s influential not only in the Vale but in all of Westeros. If you treat the father of your future queen with the respect he deserves, then others will follow your lead.”

Royce bows his head. “Have no doubt, Your Grace. I will do my duty.”

“And,” she says in a cool enough tone that Royce raises his head slowly, “never refer to him as Aegon Targaryen again."

Shamed, he bows yet again. “I will not, My Queen.”

“Good,” she says with a warm smile. “Thank you for bringing your concerns to me, my lord. You’re a good friend to the North and a good friend to me. Please don't hesitate to do it again, if you deem it necessary."

He brightens at her words for she means them (and he’s perceptive enough to know sincerity from flattery). Ever since Jon left for Dragonstone, she’s relied not only on Yohn Royce’s support and advice but his friendship too. Many evenings when Bran was doing whatever the Three-Eyed Raven does and Arya was skulking around and Littlefinger did only the gods know what, Sansa happily listened to Royce sharing stories from his youth when he was close friends with her father. He’s one of the few men she trusts and, even though his concerns weren’t news to her (she’s had them herself), he did remind her of something important: she hasn’t spoken to Jon about this at all.

He’s kept offering help and she’s rejected him without explaining why. She’s avoided it, just as she has avoided talking about their future. 

In the weeks that have passed since he opened up about his time in King’s Landing, things between them have been too good. They’ve had no conflicts, really, and even though he hardly sits down and shares his every thought and feeling every hour of the day, sometimes he’ll slip into a silence where, if only she shares it without demanding anything, he ends up sharing something of himself. Never with as much detail as when he told her about King’s Landing. He still guards the ocean of his experiences and emotions. But every once in a while he lets out a drop she gathers in the boundless chalice of her heart and, little by little, she learns him. 

It’s been lovely. She didn’t want to risk ruining it.

(Perhaps she is a bit of a hypocrite after all.)

All day she thinks about what to say, practicing it in her head while doing menial tasks and drinking more honeyed tea in preparation. But as they habitually turn to the divan to unwind after supper with sewing and reading while Iselinde sleeps, Jon brings it up himself before she’s even drawn breath to speak.

“Royce wasn’t here long.” Jon smiles crookedly. “Did I scare him off?”

“He was on his way to Karhold.”

“Aye, but…” Jon shakes his head, still with that smile on his face. “I saw how he looked at me. He doesn’t like it, does he. When he looks at me, he sees a Targaryen--and we both know how he feels about them.”

“He expressed some concerns, yes. Mostly about your role here. What you aim to do.” She lays her sewing back into the wicker basket, turns to Jon more fully, and gives him a brief (and less incendiary) account of her conversation with Royce. “It’s something we should discuss. While you stay here, you need something to do. You seem to _want_ something to do. Isn’t that why you keep offering help?”

“I’m not used to it. Doing nothing. Even when I was alone, I worked all day. And I _can_ help. I know how to do it.”

“Yes, but if I put you on my council or let you have any influence over how the North is ruled… You betrayed us, Jon. I know you didn’t mean to but--”

“I was trying to protect you. I was trying to protect everyone.”

“I know,” she says as gently as she can. “I know you had good intentions. But Jon…” She licks her lips and scoot closer. “Imagine that you didn’t like Kari. Something about her unnerved you. You didn’t like how she treated Iselinde, worried for our daughter’s safety, and didn’t want her to be alone with her. And imagine that every time you came to me to express your worries, I brushed you off. I told you Kari was a good handmaiden and a good woman. That we had nothing to worry about. That I trusted her. Imagine then that weeks pass and suddenly Kari is executed and you learn that the whole time you worried, I worried too. That I suspected Kari wanted to hurt our daughter. That I was terrified of Kari and what she could do. But that I had decided to handle it all on my own. That I told no one. Absolutely no one. Not even you. Not until I had caught her hurting other children and had reason to execute her.” Sansa pauses to let her rehearsed speech land, then, “Imagine that all that happened. How would you feel?”

Jon averts his eyes, lips pressed thin and pale.

“How would you feel about _me_?”

He says nothing.

“Would you think I was a good mother? Would you trust me ever again with the safety of our daughter?”

Jon’s throat bobs with a swallow. His nostrils flare wide. His chest moves with loud breaths. His eyes glisten. Then he leaves the room without a word.

Once, that would’ve worried her, hurt her, but now Sansa merely checks on their sleeping daughter, picks up some simple mending to clear her mind, and waits for him to return.

* * *

* * *

His cloak, the one he wore when he left Castle Black, the one sewn by the woman he loves, protects him from the snow beneath and above. It drifts lazily in the air, like feathers dancing in the breeze. Shadow snorts and kicks at the white blanket to get to the grass hidden underneath. Jon hugs his knees to his chest and stares out at the mere where ice prevents any waterfowl from gliding across.

Shame has permeated his life from the moment he learned he was a bastard and what the word meant. Like most bastards of fancy lords (or so Jon imagines), he spent many an hour daydreaming about being a trueborn son. He dreamed of a life without shame. Then he learned the truth. He never was a bastard. But, unlike in his boyhood fantasies, it did nothing to erase the shame. It only deepened it.

Being Lord Eddard Stark’s bastard is a thousand times better than being a Targaryen prince. 

Shame has permeated his entire life. Shame for who he is, shame for how he broke his vows, shame for how he lied to Ygritte and the wildings he’d come to call friends, shame for loving his sister, shame for being a Targaryen, shame for betraying his House and his people. Shame for what happened in King’s Landing.

When he first picked up a real sword after using a training sword for so long, it was heavier than he’d ever imagined. As he trained, though, his muscles grew and wielding it became easier and easier.

That doesn’t happen with shame. It never stops being heavy--and he can’t do shit about it. All he can do is keep carrying it.

* * *

* * *

He returns with snow melting in his hair and the scent of winter wafting from his clothes when he hangs up his cloak to dry and sits down on the divan. He brought a chill with him too and Sansa snuggles under a wool blanket as she keeps darning socks (and ignores how her knees ache as if a fever is coming after all).

She’s done three pairs when he opens his mouth.

“If you did that, what you said, I wouldn’t trust you ever again.” He wipes away a melted snowflake running down his forehead. “Not with the safety of our daughter. Not with _anything_. I’d think you were a terrible mother. Callous and reckless. I’d question whether you even cared.” He wipes away more melted snowflakes and stares at the water on his fingers glittering in the hearth-light. “I would hate you. I would. I would hate you.”

“I don’t hate you,” she says, softly, and puts away the socks and darning needle. “I don’t hate you at all.”

“But you did,” he says, hoarsely. ”And I don’t blame you.”

“I never hated you. Not really. I was angry and I felt betrayed and hurt. But I care about you very much. I always have. So when I tell you that I don’t trust your judgment when it comes to ruling, when I tell you there are people in the North who wouldn't feel safe with you on my council, I’m not saying that to punish you or to be mean. I’m saying it because it’s my job to protect the North."

“Yeah, I get it,” he says, nodding with his head hanging. "I should've told you about her. I should've told you right away." He looks up at her then, with so much earnestness her stomach swoops. “I’m so sorry, Sansa. I made all the wrong choices.”

“It’s not easy making good choices when you’re afraid. It's not easy making good choices when you're a prisoner."

“No, but I was a king. A king shouldn’t make the mistakes I made. I shouldn’t rule. I'm too used to doing everything on my own, in my own way. And I don't miss the responsibility. I just wanted to help. Yeah, my pride’s a bit wounded but”--he shrugs one shoulder--“I was murdered once. Think I can handle a bruised ego.”

They share a breathy laugh at that, but it just makes Sansa cough and her coughing wakes Iselinde from her sleep. Jon jumps to his feet and picks her up, rocking her gently while Sansa keeps coughing.

“You all right?” he asks once she’s quieted. “Can I get you something.”

“Tea with honey?”

After he leaves, she changes into one of her warmest nightgowns, throws more logs on the hearth, and lies down in bed to nurse Iselinde back to sleep. By the time Jon returns, Sansa is shivering and chattering her teeth.

“That bad?” he says, tucking the furs around her. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

“Don’t you dare. If you get sick too, who’ll take care of Iselinde?”

“All right. I won’t take care of you.”

He gives her the kind of smile that speaks to the fanciful parts of her, and helps propping her up with pillows behind her back. Then he pours her tea, adds a big dollop of honey, and stirs until it’s dissolved. Sipping the tea, she closes her eyes at the wonderful feeling of warm liquid alleviating the soreness of her throat.

“Anything else?”

Nodding, she puts the cup on her nightstand. “You never told me what you want to do. Riding, reading, taking care of Iselinde... It doesn't seem as if it's enough for you."

"It's fine for now but... Yeah, I think you're right. I need something else. Just don't know what."

"If I can help you in any--” Another coughing fit cuts her off; she glances at Iselinde, who luckily sleeps on. “I hope she doesn’t get sick too.”

“I feel fine, if that’s anything to go by.”

“That’s good,” Sansa murmurs, drinking more tea and staring out the window to avoid watching Jon change into his sleepwear. She doesn’t look back at him until he’s blown out all the candles and joined them in bed. “I should’ve talked to you about all this sooner. I’m sorry.”

He nods, looking up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t you?”

“I was worried I’d ruin everything. It's been so good lately. Hasn’t it?”

“Aye. Very good.” He rolls over on his side and smiles at her. “Better than ever.”

“Better than ever,” she whispers sleepily and lets her eyes drift closed.

"Sansa?"

"Hm?" She blinks her eyes open.

"Thank you. For letting me leave for a bit."

"You're welcome," she says, eyes sliding back shut. "Thank you for coming back. For listening."

If he replies, she doesn't hear it. The fever pulls her into a deep sleep and the next time she wakes, it's from Iselinde searching for the breast. Jon’s lying on his side facing the baby, just like Sansa. Moonlit and hearthlit, he’s snoring lightly and drooling into his pillow with an open mouth and he shouldn’t look beautiful to her like that. He should look silly. But he’s so beautiful it hurts.

She squeezes her eyes shut and seals her heart back in its steel casing, makes sure the fanciful parts of herself stay muted. He’s made her stupid too many times before--and she’s not a stupid little girl who never learns. She’s a woman grown and she won’t make the same mistakes again. No matter how tempting it is to believe that better than ever could turn into something wonderful.


	22. Waiting for the Hint of a Spark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update. It was a combo of colds, a winter break for my kid, and more work stuff (and me just being generally tired lol). Anyway… Hopefully, it won’t take this long to get the next one out. I do feel a bit under the weather, but I've decided to ignore it! :D

When nothing soothes Iselinde at night, Jon ties her to his chest and heads out to walk with the wolves while Sansa gets her sleep. He’s got nothing important to do during the day, after all; he can nap whenever he likes. And these midnight strolls of theirs are a joy he knows he’ll never have again. He knows they’re something to cherish. 

Tonight, though, he’s loathe to leave their chamber. But whenever Sansa coughs, Iselinde wakes and she needs her sleep too. Wolkan has placed a bowl of onions and herbs on Sansa’s nightstand and now pours hot water over the mix. The vapors will relieve the coughing, he says. He can tend to Sansa for an hour or two. Jon shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Wolkan coughs discreetly into a handkerchief he then pockets.

Three people have passed away. 

Others, like Kari and Wolkan, made a swift recovery as if their high fever burned away the sickness in only a few days. He still coughs and sniffles, granted, and looks as if he hasn’t slept in days, but he’s on his feet. Perhaps Sansa will be on her feet in a few days too.

Jon puts on his cloak and tugs it firmly around himself and Iselinde. His feet still won’t budge.

A sheen covers Sansa’s pasty face. Sweat has saturated the hair at her temples from copper to auburn. Jon bows his chin and brushes a kiss to his daughter’s downy head without taking his eyes off his… Without taking his eyes off Sansa.

“She’s strong, my lord,” Wolkan says softly. “Young. Of robust health. Andrey and Edda were so old they couldn’t remember their ages. And Denys has been sickly his whole life. The old, the very young, and the weak, they’re…” He trails off when Jon wraps his hands protectively around his daughter’s tiny body. “The princess will be fine too, my lord. Archmaester Ebrose says mother’s milk offers protection. If you talk to the smallfolk, they’ll tell you the same. If she had caught the sickness, she would be showing symptoms already.”

Jon nods absentmindedly, stroking Iselinde’s back while swaying on the spot out of habit. Still staring at Sansa. Her body convulses with another coughing fit. Iselinde starts wailing again and, with a deep sigh, Jon heads out.

He’s barely sat foot in the godswood before Ghost and Lamb come out from the shadows pooling between the trees. Usually, they’re playful and happy; tonight, they pad alongside Jon beneath the naked crowns until they reach the clearing of the weirwood tree.

No gods exist. No heavens nor hells. There’s only life and death, Jon knows, and yet he lays his hand against the cool bark of the heart-tree, closes his eyes, and prays.

* * *

The stench of onions and herbs hits him in the face when they return, all four of them, but he’ll gladly suffer it for Sansa’s coughing has finally stopped. Ghost rests his nose on her shoulder and licks her cheek before stretching out in front of the hearth. Lamb jumps up in bed as if she belongs there and lays her head on Sansa’s shins. Sansa sleeps on, her breathing heavy and raspy.

“When she wakes, get her something to eat, then two drops of this.” Wolkan puts a small glass bottle on her nightstand. “On her tongue or in a drink. I gave her some just now. It will help her sleep.” He regards Jon with kind eyes. “I could give you some too. Kari can watch the princess--”

“No. I’ll be fine.”

Jon lays the babe between him and Sansa, and picks up a book. He glances at her every other sentence. He reads the same page five times without retaining a single word. He puts the book back on the nightstand and closes his eyes to rest them. Opens them instantly. Turns on his side so he can watch her chest rise and fall now that she sleeps so quietly (too quietly).

For years, he slept beneath a blanket of stars with Shadow as company and dreamed of everyone he loved being happy and healthy. As long as he stayed in the wilderness, so they would remain. As long as he stayed, he’d never lose anyone else ever again.

If he listened to the clingy, greedy voice that dwells in the depths of him, one he learned to suppress at an early age, he’d hold her hand for a moment. He’d stroke her cheek and kiss her brow. He’d whisper confessions and pleas that have run endlessly in his mind ever since her fever took hold, but she never touches him anymore if she can help it, so Jon keeps his hands and his feelings to himself.

Longclaw stands forgotten by the wardrobe. With Lamb watching over the baby, Jon moves to the divan, finds a swath of oiled leather, and starts honing the blade for the first time in months. 

The other day when he and Sansa did their morning stretches together, he caught his reflection in the full length mirror and nearly recoiled. A few months of good food and little work have softened him a touch. Filled out what life in the wilderness hollowed. Sansa has noticed too. She’s not said anything, but he’s caught her glancing at his body once or twice without any hunger in her eyes. 

He wraps his fingers around the grip, feeling the weight of the sword. If he goes longer without training, the grip might not feel right in his hand anymore and he’ll have to adjust all over again. It’s time. A father must be able to protect his family. A father can’t afford to let his body turn soft. 

When Sansa’s coughing returns, hours must’ve passed--or at least that’s what the dying fire tells him. He feeds it on his way to bed where a barely-awake Sansa has managed to help the baby latch on. He lets out the wolves and finds Kari, and soon the scent of barley soup with chicken mixes with the stench of onion in a way that should make Jon’s mouth water, but food has never seemed less appetizing to him.

While Kari takes Iselinde for a bath, Jon helps Sansa sit up in bed. She blinks heavily. Heat radiates off her pale skin. He dips the spoon into the bowl, blows on the soup, and tells her to open up. For a beat, he thinks she’ll protest, tell him she’s not a child, take the spoon from his hand. But exhaustion must’ve stolen all her stubbornness for she parts her lips and accepts the spoon. Slowly, he feeds her and with each spoonful she regains more energy until the bowl is empty and she’s strong enough to speak.

“You’re worried I’ll die,” she murmurs. “I overheard you. You and Wolkan.” Her eyes glide shut. “Water? Something cool.”

He finds a pitcher and pours her a mugful, tells her he adds the drops Maester Wolkan left as he does so, and helps her drink it.

“I understand,” she says, fingers wrapped around the mug. “When you’ve lost so much already, it’s difficult to hope. It’s easier to worry, to prepare for the worst. I am prepared, though. If I die--”

“Don’t.” He bows his head, shaking it. “Please don’t.”

She fumbles after his hand and squeezes it so weakly his heart aches. “I already have a will. Wolkan and my council will take care of everything until she’s older. You’ll always have a home here. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

Jon looks away but holds her hand a little tighter.

“You just have to find a wetnurse. Someone you trust. _Your_ choice”--another squeeze--”no one else’s. And--” A wide yawn cuts her off, one she doesn’t cover with her hand for once. She leans her head back against the mound of pillows and watches him with glossy barely-open eyes. “When I was thirteen, Father gave me a doll. As if I were a child. I was so upset. I was betrothed, almost a woman grown, and he gave me a _doll_.”

Jon smiles tenderly at her. “Fathers always see their daughters as little girls no matter their age.”

Sansa shakes her head faintly. “He gave Arya sword lessons. Because he knew her. The last time he paid attention to anything I did, was when I was little enough I played with dolls. He didn’t treat me like a child; he just didn’t know me. He loved me--I know that--but he didn’t _see_ me--”

She breathes out a self-deprecating chuckle, doesn’t need to say the words on her mind for he hears them perfectly, sees them in her wan smile that speaks of a heartache so faded it amuses more than hurts, as if she can laugh at her silly younger self now that she’s old enough to know better than to love a man who never truly knew her.

“Don’t be like Father.” Her eyes slide shut again and her words come out mumbled and quiet, “Love Iselinde. Love her and see her. See _her_. So she knows she’s more than just a queen or even a daughter or sister. So she knows she’s…”

The rest of that sentence gets lost in a soft exhale as Sansa falls back asleep.

Her hand is lax in his. He doesn’t press her knuckles to his lips. He doesn’t brush his thumb over her soft skin. He merely tucks her hand back under the furs and returns to his side of the bed. And there he lies, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Sansa’s breathing.

In some of Old Nan’s stories, when knights found themselves having to share a bed with the ladies they protected, they laid a sword between them for honor’s sake. Jon and Sansa might not be separated by a blade, but what will connect them for the rest of their lives now also separates them night after night. A little someone who was created one morning when their bodies acted on desire in a shared bed. A moment that couldn’t possibly be recreated and result in making Iselinde a sister.

But Bran did say children...

Jon ponders it all night without becoming much wiser. The following day he exists only to take care of his daughter and his… To take care of Sansa. Kari stops by, insisting to take over, but Jon refuses. Making himself useful is the only way he knows how to stop worry from swallowing him whole.

Finally, in the evening, when Wolkan replaces the herb and onion mix on Sansa’s nightstand, Kari shoves Jon down on the divan and tells him that either he eats some soup or she’ll bind him to a chair and force feed him herself.

Jon doesn’t even remember finishing the damn thing. One moment, he’s sitting in a dimly lit room with a spoon in his hand. The next moment, he’s lying on the divan, beneath a wool blanket, blinking against sunlight streaming in through the window and listening to the gulps of a hungry baby eating. Sitting up, he drags a hand through his unbound, messy hair and looks over the backrest at the bed.

Sansa is sitting up with Iselinde in her arms. The color has returned to her cheeks and lips. The sheen of fever has left her eyes and forehead. And when she tells him good morning and asks why he’s on the divan, her voice might be hoarse but also stronger than it has been in days.

“I was drugged,” he says with a wide grin and returns to bed. Had she been his wife, he would’ve cupped her cheek and kissed her forehead before wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close to him, but she is not his wife or his anything at all. “You look better.”

“But I smell _awful_.” She lays Iselinde over her shoulder and rubs the baby’s back until she burps. “I need a bath.”

“At least that means you don’t have a stuffy nose anymore.”

With narrowed eyes, she regards him for a beat before pressing her warm wrist against his forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“Jon Snow finding silver linings?” she says, removing her wrist. “Had to make sure you weren’t delirious with fever.”

It’s a poor joke and yet he finds himself laughing at it, carefree and easy, while Sansa watches him with a barely-there smile. She’s weak, still, and he shouldn’t overthink it. But that smile looks so much like her old muted smiles when she distanced herself from everything that could bring her joy that he can’t help but think something he did or said scared her into retreating, and his laughter dies with an awkward chuckle. But then Sansa’s smile grows after all, her gaze almost loving, and she leans her head on his shoulder with a soft hum and thanks him for taking care of her.

She stays for long enough that he could drop a kiss to the crown of her head, but he’s not that foolish.

When she leaves him and Iselinde for her bath, he is foolish enough to hope, though. Just a bit. Hope that things will change, that the fever made Sansa reveal that her wishes for a big family haven’t changed, and that the chubby baby in his arms will one day be a sister. 

* * *

Once, winter stretched on for years and years; now it only lasts for a few months at a time and spring already prepares to make an entrance from the south. The mornings are brighter, the winds milder, and the snow wet enough to pack into snowballs. In a year or two, Jon will teach his daughter how to build snow knights and snow lanterns; for now, they keep taking their wolf walks where Jon tells her everything he knows about the world around them: the names of trees and bushes, of birds flying up above, of critters skittering up tree trunks or burrowing into snowbanks at first scent of direwolves.

He starts training too, using dummies at first before asking Sansa’s Master-At-Arms whether he can spar with the guards and teach them the techniques Nodareoh taught him. The first time he catches Sansa watching him, he gets so distracted he forgets to parry a blow. The quarterstaff hits him on the shoulder and he’s blue for days. He keeps training, though, working through the dull pain until it goes away--and she keeps watching him.

When she was pregnant, he knew just how to drive her mad with want. He knew to roll up his sleeves, untuck his tunic, watch her with hooded eyes, walk close enough that she could smell him. But he’ll never forget the pain in her voice, in her eyes, the day she confessed what she once felt and the toll their intimacy took on her. If she wants to change the nature of their relationship, if she wants to be intimate again, she’ll have to come to him. His days of seducing her are over.

So he lives one day at a time and waits and waits for something to change, for her rare touches to grow more frequent, for her eyes to darken with desire once more, for her gaze to lock with his before she rushes to their chamber knowing he’s following closely behind. He waits and waits and weeks pass and nothing happens. Watching him fighting for a spell provides Sansa with a respite from boring meetings and paperwork, that’s all. She always did enjoy the thrill of a good sparring session. He remembers that. He remembers plenty. Her love for knights and flowers and lemon cakes and songs. The way she shone whenever she wore a dress she’d sewn herself and was showered with compliments. The many hours she spent training Lady until the direwolf was more well-mannered than most dogs. How she would sing to her while brushing her coat before tying a silk ribbon around Lady’s neck and telling the wolf she was the prettiest girl in all the world _yes you are_. He’d sneak closer, then, just so he could listen to Sansa’s sweet voice singing about fools and maids in love. Sometimes he heard her whisper promises to Lady as well, that once she found her future lord husband and moved to his castle with its lush, sun-drenched garden, she’d find Lady a mate too so that Sansa’s children and Lady’s pups could grow up together.

When Sansa told him he never saw her, he was almost offended. She was right, though, wasn’t she. All his life he’s watched lady Sansa from a distance--but he didn’t see past the pretty, the poised, the perfect. He admired her the way one admires a lady in a song. Now, though, he’s seen her angry and heartbroken and stressed, snoring and sniffling and coughing, red-nosed and fever-pale and chap-lipped. He’s seen her stomach swell and her nipples darken. He’s seen her pull a baby from her own body.

It only makes him love her more. He loves her in a way he never thought possible _because_ he sees her--and love makes him foolish so still he waits.

When he returns one afternoon from the mere where he’s exercised Shadow and pondered future plans, he’s barely set foot in their chamber before Sansa’s hand closes around his and she pulls him to the bed where Iselinde lies on her back. Kneeling, Sansa picks up one pink foot, brings it to her lips, and blows a raspberry against the tiny toes. The most wonderful sound fills the room, warm and bubbly--Iselinde’s first laugh--and something warm and bubbly fills his chest too.

They take turns tickling their daughter’s feet while Iselinde giggles and giggles--and for a moment they forget themselves. For a moment, they’re loving parents, a family, the leaders of a pack who act on instinct, together, in tune. Jon wraps his arm around Sansa and she leans her temple against his temple and they hum contentedly at the same time while gazing down at their beaming daughter and his heart is so full of love he could burst--and then Sansa shifts. Just a bit. Enough for him to know to pull away too.

It’s not a punishment, though, this distance she keeps--nor is it protection. She doesn’t recoil or fly away like a frightened bird. She doesn’t even hide behind work to avoid spending time with him. No, she spends more time with him than ever. Even as the last remnants of her winter cold finally fade and she regains her strength, she doesn’t go back to working the way she used to work. They sleep in on weekends and break their fast in bed and, sometimes, when Jon naps with Iselinde during the day, he wakes to find Sansa in bed with them with her nose in the baby’s soft hair and her hand closed around the baby’s tiny fist. They go for wolf walks at noon and talk about everything and nothing. They unwind in front of the hearth after supper every evening, where he reads or polishes Longclaw and she knits or sews or sketches a new dress with pen against parchment. Sometimes she even sings softly to herself. (He loves those evenings a little more than the rest.)

She seems comfortable. Content. Even happy. And he’s not the only one who’s noticed.

One morning, when Jon’s scouting the area surrounding the mere and jotting down notes in the notebook he’s bound himself, he runs into Wolkan kneeling on the ground by a birchbark basket. After exchanging pleasantries and talking about his finds (bundles of herbs and heaps of moss and fungi neatly organized in the basket), the maester quiets with a pensive look on his face. So Jon stays silent too and waits for the man to decide whether he should share whatever’s on his mind. Finally, Wolkan pushes himself to stand with some effort and tells Jon about a tea he’s perfected. One that alleviates the Queen’s headaches in under an hour and contains bark and herbs and the very root he just dug from the ground.

“She used to work so hard, you see,” Wolkan says, nodding to himself. “More than she should. She took on work below her position. Far below, really. Oh, she trusts us. It wasn’t like that, my lord. It was the loneliness…” He lowers his head, shaking it sadly. “She worked herself into headaches so often we were quite worried about her. Quite worried. Myself, Kari, the whole castle. But now? I can’t remember the last time I had to brew that tea for her. Still pick the roots, though, just in case but…” A smile blooms on his face until he’s beaming. “It’s good to have you _home_ , my lord. We’re all very relieved. Very grateful.”

Then he gives Jon an awkward pat on the shoulder, grabs his basket, and walks farther out on the fields to forage with a spring in his step.

Jon remembers well how subdued and pale Wolkan was when they took back Winterfell. How he jumped at any sudden noise and blanched whenever he had to deliver bad news and seemed to fade into the walls whenever tension simmered in a room. When Jon left for King’s Landing, the man still hadn’t come fully out of his shell, but now he seems at ease, a bit more confident, as if Winterfell truly is his home too. As if Sansa and Jon and Iselinde are his family, and he’ll be the closest thing the princess has to a grandfather--just like Maester Luwin was a sort of grandfather to the Starks.

This was what they wanted, Jon and Sansa, raising a family in a Winterfell that reminds them more of their childhood than the bad days that followed when the castle was invaded over and over and dangers loomed in every direction. They even have a direwolf pack who’s made a home in the godswood and prowls the wolfswood for prey. Ghost and Fox follow Jon around enough that Shadow’s now used to the scent. Fang has calmed a touch while Shy isn’t quite as reclusive (even if he still prefers his own company most of the time), and Lamb often spends her evenings in Jon and Sansa’s chamber and sometimes chooses to sleep at the foot of their bed. More than once, Jon has seen her pick up a blanket delicately with her teeth and tuck it around the baby with her snout, as if she’s watched Jon and Sansa take care of Iselinde and knows what to do. Then she settles in and watches her with eyes as round and yellow as the moon or even snuggle her snout close to the babe and sleeps too.

Some frown at that, Jon knows. While the servants of Winterfell accept the presence of wolves in the godswood and even see it as a blessing of sorts, as if the old gods sent the wolves there to guard over the Starks of Winterfell and their people, they don’t forget that they’re wild beasts--and wild beasts can devour a babe in one bite. “It’s a tragedy waiting to happen,” some whisper, but neither Jon nor Sansa worry. Lamb is so protective of Iselinde (and whomever carries her), she’ll growl low in her throat at any perceived threat or approaching strangers to keep them at a healthy distance from the princess.

“You’re a good girl,” Jon murmurs, scratching her ear as he lets her out to run wild in the night.

Sansa watches him return to bed, her eyes skirting over his bare chest before skittering away. She doesn’t look back at him until he’s lying under the thin blankets. Now that spring is here, the bed they share is too warm for nightshirts and furs, and he sleeps only in his smallclothes. She still wears her nightgowns, though, and sleeps beneath her furs (and sometimes, when she's asleep and her body acts on its own, her cold feet seek out the warmth of his calves).

“Do you ever have wolf dreams?” Sansa whispers to him as she looks down at their daughter whose eyes move beneath her lids in her sleep. “As if you were one, chasing through the woods, hunting rabbits, all that.”

“Aye, but it’s rare now. More often when I was younger. Why?”

“When the hounds bit into Ramsay, I could feel the taste of blood between my teeth. As if I’d done it myself. I remembered then. The wolf dreams I used to have before Lady died. I didn’t know they weren’t ordinary dreams until Bran came back and we talked one evening. I was warging. I was warging into Lady when I slept. Arya did it too with Nymeria. I think we all did. Robb, Rickon, all of us.” Sansa strokes a finger over the baby’s plump cheek. “And maybe our little sproutling will too. Perhaps that’s why they’ve stayed. Perhaps Ghost’s family will be bonded to ours generation after generation. Perhaps his grandchildren will protect our grandchildren."

“Yeah,” Jon says, softly. “Maybe.”

“I’d like that.”

Jon smiles at her, at the way she talks about _their_ family--one that could so easily grow so that they have one child for every direwolf pup and Iselinde becomes a sister and Winterfell is full of Stark children once more. 

That _is_ what they wanted. _Children_. That’s what they agreed on when they discussed their arrangement. But it’s early yet. Iselinde isn’t four months, Sansa’s moonblood won’t return yet for a long while, and they’re in no rush. Jon doesn’t mind waiting.

Beneath the spring sun, snow melts and muddy slush carpets the ground. He itches for the handle of axe or hammer to fill his hand, for the rays of the sun to hit his back as he works, for the thwacks of metal against wood to give a rhythm to the melody of bird song and chase away annoying thoughts. But his tools are still in the valley with the rest of his belongings, and he pushes that need aside. He must return one day, he knows that, but he doesn’t want to rock a ship that finally sails so smoothly. He’ll leave to collect his things and say goodbye to the valley once and for all when his relationship with Sansa is as solid and strong as Winterfell itself.

* * *

At the mere, draped over grass dotted with coltsfoot and pilewort and snowdrop, lie huge blankets weighed down by cushions, trays of cups and pitchers, and dome-covered platters containing Jon's favorite breakfast food. With wolves and guards patrolling the area (and servants within shouting distance), Jon and his family break their fast in peace beneath a sky full of morning sun and bird song. Up in the shadow of the Iron Mountains, where his cabin stands perpetually half-built, snow still lies thick on the ground this time of year. But down in the southern parts of the North, the snow has melted and although the air is still crisp, the sun shines well enough to warm them and, he imagines, even freckle Sansa’s nose by the end of the day.

It’s his nameday and this, a day at the mere with good food and no guests, is his gift. She's even wearing something new. Unlike her every day dresses of simple silhouettes and muted palettes, today's dress has sweeping skirts adorned with wood anemone embroidery, like a thousand pale stars scattered over deepest blue. The same shade as the dress she wore when he stuttered out that he liked the wolf bit like a bleeding idiot. (He’s jerked awake many times when that line has decided to echo in his head just as he was falling asleep.) He always did love her in blue and now he can’t help but wonder whether she’s noticed. She’s dressed Iselinde in a matching tunic over ivory wool stockings and an adorable hat knitted from the same soft lambswool in a petal-like pattern. She’s even adorned Lamb with a big blue bow around her neck, and Shadow with several tiny blue ribbons in her mane. They’re quite the vision, his girls. All dressed up for his nameday (all dressed up for him). He’s in something new himself the seamstress sewed him. Simple things, really, but the fabrics are expensive and the fit of the bone-white tunic and black breeches immaculate. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but he could swear Sansa’s eyes seek him out more often than usual as they eat and chat and read and stroll and enjoy this day of leisure. It emboldens him a bit, lures out the fool in him, and with Lamb curled protectively around their sleeping daughter, Jon offers to teach Sansa how to fish.

Once, when the the air between them sparked with anticipation and every touch was a question eager for an answer, this would’ve led somewhere. He would’ve circled her waist with his arms and shown her how to hold the rod. He would’ve brushed his nose along her neck and breathed her in and waited for her to angle it to give him better access so he could kiss her sunwarm skin. He would’ve nipped the lobe of her ear before pulling her closer still and whispering, “Do you want me?”

But he’s waiting for her, doesn’t take advantage of the situation to grab more than he deserves. When she finally catches a sorry-looking perch and turns to him with a proud smile, he doesn’t offer a hug to celebrate. He doesn’t touch her at all, only smiles back at her and holds her gaze for a touch longer than necessary and there, in the space between two breaths, something changes. Just the hint of a spark so fleeting it’s gone the moment it registers.

“Would you like your gifts now?” she says, handing back the rod.

“Gifts?” His smile grows. “I’m getting gifts too?”

“Of course you are. It’s you nameday.”

The first gift is wrapped in cloth and tied together with a pretty bow. He tugs at the end to unravel it and his thoughts race back to a dark, quiet evening when she’d wrapped her body in lace and silk and offered herself to him, asked him to unwrap her while hiding her broken heart behind a mask of ice. It’s not like that now, though. She’s ever warm around him. Warm and relaxed. Unaffected after all. He must've imagined that spark and shakes his head to clear it so he can focus on the gift.

It's a book--a tome, really--and on a leather bound cover, golden letters spell out _The History of Horses: Every Breed In the Known World._

“It’s not every breed,” she says. “As far as I could tell, Shadow’s breed isn’t in there but… I don’t know. You seem to like horses.”

“I do.” He smooths his hand over the book. “I’ve been wanting something like this.”

“Really?” She breathes out a smile. “Good. I got you this too.”

From the open carriage in which they arrived, she lifts a polished and rather heavy-looking cherrywood chest and Jon shoots to his feet to help her carry it to the blanket. Its lid is engraved with a loping direwolf, its coat painted snow-white and eyes painted ruby-red, and he lifts it carefully to reveal a leather tool belt and a new set of tools. With his breath caught, he ghosts his fingers over cool metal and smooth wood. Each handle is engraved with the head of direwolf, like the Stark sigil only in white and red. Like Ghost. Like Longclaw.

“I’m not sure you’re Jon the Builder anymore. I’m not even sure you want to… I don’t know.” Sansa shakes her head, looking down at her skirts. “You said you liked it, building things, and your tools aren’t here and… Well. I thought-- If you don't like it, I can--”

“I do like it," he says, hoarsely. "Just what I wanted. Thank you, Sansa."

Her eyes widen with delight and the beaming smile she gives him hits him deep in his stomach and he knows she loves him. Perhaps not the way he loves her, but she loves him and sees him--and her gift was a wordless invitation for him to stay at Winterfell, to stay with her and their daughter, to stay until the end of his days.

A year ago to the day, he lay drunk and alone in the snow, dreaming about Sansa and her children and refusing to admit to himself that in his dreams those children were his too. Now, he lies back in the grass and grins up at the clear blue sky, at his maudlin past self who didn't know that was the last nameday he'd ever spend alone for he will celebrate the rest of his namedays right here at Winterfell. He will celebrate the rest of his namedays with his family.

They stay at the mere until the sun sits fat and red on the horizon. The cold bothers him none, but Sansa snuggles gratefully under the furs the moment they sit down in the open carriage with Lamb at their feet and the baby in a wrap.

“Want the blanket too?” he asks with a smile he knows must look a bit too fond, but luckily she misses it when she closes her eyes and yawns behind the back of her hand.

“No, I’m fine. Did you have a good nameday?”

“The best.”

“Even better than when you turned sixteen?” she says, a wry twinkle in her eyes.

Jon sits up straighter. “What?”

“Theon told me. He was bragging about how he and Robb had found you the perfect gift now that you were a man grown. Just your taste, I believe he said. It wasn’t very hard to figure out he’d bought you a whore.”

“Oh.” Jon bows his head. “I didn’t do anything. Was too scared of fathering a bastard. So I told her she was very beautiful, but I couldn’t and she was very understanding.”

“What, you did _nothing_? There are other things to do, you know, that won’t result in a babe.”

“I know,” he says, almost glaring at her. “You _know_ I know. You know it very well.”

Sansa’s cheeks rival the fiery sunset in color and he can’t help the satisfying thrill in his stomach.

“Was she not to your taste?” she asks, picking grass from her skirts.

“She was. Gorgeous, really. But I didn’t want to. So she told me to lie down for a while, that we could cuddle so, when Theon and Robb asked, I could at least tell them I shared a bed with Ros the Beauty of Wintertown without lying but--”

“It was Ros?” Sansa whispers and for half a heartbeat he thinks she understands a thing or two about his taste (he thinks she’s even a bit jealous). “I’m sorry, Jon. Had I known, I wouldn’t have told you about what Joffrey did to her the way I did.”

Closing his eyes, Jon stiffles a sigh. _Seven hells_ , he’s an idiot. It wasn't jealousy at all. Only guilt. Guilt for, when they discussed what to name their unborn child, Sansa did tell him about Ros in that offhanded tone she uses whenever she talks about Joffrey and Ramsay and the horrors they inflicted on others, as if she must distance herself lest she falls apart.

“And now I’m ruining your nameday by reminding you of awful things.”

“You’re not," he says. "You couldn’t even if you tried. This day has been perfect. Probably one of the best days I've ever had."

At his confession, she lights up like the early stars twinkling above in the darkening sky, but she doesn’t give him a similar confession nor does she share in that joy with him for long. No, she hides her reaction quickly by dropping a kiss to their daughter’s head. The rejection doesn’t sting the way it used to, though. Relaxed, Jon sits back and watches Shadow pull the carriage with the energy of someone who misses the hard work of pulling logs for her human, watches the pretty ribbons in her mane put there by Sansa’s caring hands, watches Lamb wear her bow so proudly, watches Sansa cuddle their daughter with a tender smile on her lips. His girls. His family. _Their_ family. Whenever Sansa talks about their lives, about Iselinde, she says _we_ and _us_ and _ours_. She planned this whole day for him in secret, to make him happy. She gave him tools so he wouldn’t go back to the valley and get his things. So that he wouldn’t leave her again. She still hasn’t thrown him out of her bed even though she only invited him to sleep in it because she thought he’d leave after two weeks.

Perhaps that means she's on her way of falling back in love with him. Perhaps she never will. In that moment, he finds it doesn't quite matter anymore. What he has now is more than he ever deserved and wanting even more than that is greedy (it’s greedy enough as it is). He can live like this for the rest of his days and die comfortable, content, even happy.

Since the birth of his daughter, he’s made himself a good life at Winterfell. Not as a steward or a crow or a king or a captive or a builder but as a father--and something else too, if he’ll make anything of these plans filling up his notebook. Plans he works on every free moment he has, often retreating to the library with Iselinde sleeping in the wrap while he studies whatever books he can find on the subject and jots down ideas in the notebook. He’s so busy, spring is in full bloom before he knows it. The soft buds of sallows burst into bloom, fields of primrose stretch out between stumps and stones, and the cherry trees in the godswood proudly show off their pale pink petals before letting the wind carry them all over Winterfell to catch in the wool of a cloak or the strands of a horse’s tail--or the simple braid of Sansa’s hair as she oversees all the preparations for their daughter’s feast.

One grey afternoon, two days before the celebration, a carriage rolls into the courtyard carrying friends from the past. As they have no ships, the Tarlys traveled to the east coast where they sailed to White Harbor on a Tarth ship with Brienne and her family. Sam tumbles out of the carriage first. His eyes connect with Jon and, for a breath, they hesitate like two arrows nocked and ready, almost vibrating against the bowstring at being held back. Then, as if someone shouted _release_ , they shoot forward and crash into one another’s arms and embrace like brothers for so long they’re both misty-eyed when they pull apart.

Gilly, however, keeps her distance, only acknowledging Jon with a nod before she lines up her children so that they all can bow to the queen before being introduced to Jon. At Eddison’s name, Sam grins nervously and stutters out the syllables, but Jon keeps an easy smile on his face as he says hello to the three boys, and the baby girl on Gilly’s hip, and Sam visibly relaxes.

Then comes the ever proper Brienne who bows to them both before introducing her son, Galladon, and her husband. A man her opposite in almost every way, Perceon is short and reed-thin with wild chestnut hair and sparkling chestnut eyes and a smile so warm and friendly it makes Brienne seem almost curt in comparison. Then the sky opens up and cuts the reunion short. The guests flee into the guesthouse, where they spend the rest of the afternoon settling in, tending to their children, washing the road off them, and resting before supper. Jon and Sam should talk, he supposes--clear the air a bit and all that--but it can wait until tomorrow. Tonight is busy as it is--and as they all sit down at the table to sup, Tormund bursts through the door with a hearty hello and a toddler on one arm and a new wife on the other, and busy becomes almost chaotic.

With so many old friends (and so many new children) in one small chamber, it’s the loudest supper Jon has had in years. His head spins with all the different questions and congratulations and the constant interruptions of six year old Eddison, who asks _why_ and _what_ and _how_ about everything he sees and hears, or three year old Dickon who absolutely must show off as often as possible by singing at the top of his lungs a bawdy tune he picked up from the crew on Brienne’s ship (no matter how much Gilly tries shushing him).

It’s good in a way, though, this boisterous atmosphere. With every conversation interrupted or derailed, with so much catching up to do, no one asks Jon or Sansa about the nature of their relationship. No one asks whether they’re planning on getting married or having more children. Not even Tormund, who’s so busy being in love with his wife Jon can’t help but wonder whether it’s just the smallest bit to show Brienne he’s over her. His new wife, Milla, has hair the color of pumpkins and a face more freckled than the sky is starry. She’s pretty in a wholesome, robust way and her belly is already round with child. Five months along, according to Tormund, who won’t stop stroking his wife’s stomach (or caressing her cheek or patting her bum). He’s generous with his affection and they’re still the wildly in love newly weds who steal kisses and touches and feed each other morsels from their fingers and gaze into one another’s eyes in a way that’s almost sickening. 

Sam and Gilly aren’t much better, really. No, they don’t cling to one another as if scared one will vanish if the other lets go, but their love is the love of two people who know each other completely, are wholly comfortable with one another, and exchange casual touches without even thinking. Like how Gilly squeezes his arm and rubs her thumb over the ball of his shoulder when she touches him to get his attention so he can pass her the salt or how Sam runs his fingers across her back when he passes her to help Dickon with his napkin (and kisses the crown of her head before sitting back down next to her). Sometimes one lays their hand on the other’s hand and they exchange a fond look. Other times they just lean into one another. They belong together, like the leaders of a pack who act on instinct, together, in tune--and neither ever pulls away from the other.

But Brienne and Perceon are worst of all.

He worships her. While a jovial fellow no matter to whom he speaks, he only truly shines when he looks at his wife, as if he can’t quite believe his luck. And Brienne… Brienne does seem to like him. She smiles fondly when he jokes, she shares a proud look with him when someone compliments Galladon, and she accepts the few touches he gives her without tensing up or shying away. She seems comfortable, content. Even happy. She loves him, Jon thinks, but she’s not _in_ love with him. She’s not in love with him at all.

Staring into a mirror has never been more painful.

In the din, no one notices Jon growing more and more quiet until he’s brooding into his ale. 

Aye, he loves Sansa because he sees her, but the opposite is true for her, isn't it. When they met again, she needed a knight, a protector, a champion. That's what she wanted to see--what _he_ wanted her to see--and she loved him for it. She loved him the way one loves a hero in a song. But he’s not a hero. He’s just a man. A broken, flawed and tired man who can be sullen and taciturn and petty and not very dashing at all. 

Now that Sansa has seen past the brave and honorable and strong, now that she’s seen past the surface, she loves Jon only as the father of her child. She loves him the way Brienne loves her husband.

Sansa never meant Iselinde when she mentioned _sister_. She was talking about herself, that’s all, sharing a painful memory of a father who saw only a perfect lady, a dutiful daughter, and a caring sister.

Shadow and Lamb and Iselinde might all be Jon's girls, but Sansa is not. And when they lie down for the night, him and his girls and the woman with whom he shares a bed and a life and a daughter, it strikes Jon that more intimacy isn't for what he should be waiting. No, he should prepare himself for the day when Sansa sits him down and tells him in that sober voice she uses whenever she rejects him that it's time for him to sleep in his own bed, in his own chamber. That she doesn't need him in hers anymore.

It will still be a good life. He’ll be comfortable and content--he will--but living a whole life without being touched or kissed or wanted or _loved--_ can he truly be happy?

Can he truly live like that for the rest of his days?


	23. On the Outside Looking In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you’re safe out there. Everything is very scary right now. I’m grateful for fandom, ao3, and wonderful readers. It’s a good distraction to have. I appreciate you all so much. Thank you <3

On the journey north, no matter how blatantly Brienne showed her disapproval, Sam wouldn’t stop speculating about the nature of Jon and Sansa’s relationship. According to him, Tormund had implied (with an eyebrow waggle replicated by a grinning Sam) that _things_ were brewing between the cousins.That _things_ (another waggle) would happen. However, that wildling can make anything sound lewd and he’s about as good at reading people as he is at eating with even a semblance of table manners, and Brienne simply put no stock in his assessment. Wishful thinking, that’s all. (Another talent of his.)

Like most married lords and ladies, Jon and Sansa have an arrangement. Unlike those lords and ladies, however, they are not married for Sansa needn’t marry to procure a legitimate heir. Considering everything that happened with those ghastly Bettleys, it makes a certain sense that she would choose someone so familiar to her. It doesn’t mean feelings are involved. Sansa’s letter suggested nothing of the sort.

Granted, thinking back to her days at Winterfell, Brienne does remember a strange sort of tension between the two. Back then, she always saw it as sibling rivalry. The bickering and teasing and conflicts never seemed that harsh for there was a deep, unconditional love between them that showed itself in gestures grand and small. Something that brought a smile to Brienne’s face quite a fair amount of times.

Now, though, she can’t help but question her own assessment. She can’t help but question whether she knows anything about sibling dynamics at all.

Galladon, her older brother, drowned when she was four. Only fuzzy memories remain, ones that are more likely to be other people’s memories shared with her than her own. Her younger sisters never had the fortune to grow beyond infanthood. And so Brienne grew up a lonely child without friends or cousins. As a woman grown she first served Renly, who wanted to go to war against his brother, and then she met Jaime--and _Jaime_ , well...

Brienne rolls her shoulders and looks at the ever-red branches of the weirwood tree fighting with the sun over the honor of being reflected in the still surface of the godswood pond.

Thinking about him still stings, just a bit. 

They always bickered too, didn’t they. They rolled their eyes and sighed at one another and picked fights and teased because they couldn’t express their feelings in any other way. It was the only release available to them until Jaime knocked on her door and clumsily seduced her when both of them knew better than to give in.

Yes, thinking back to her days at Winterfell, Brienne can perhaps see traces of her own dynamic with Jaime in the way Jon and Sansa behave. Or _used_ to behave, rather. They don’t behave that way now. In fact, they don’t interact much at all. Not yesterday nor this morning. Since all the four families left the breakfast table for a stroll in the godswood to help digestion, Brienne has only seen them interact once and that was when Sansa handed the princess to her father so she could kneel by a patch of cowslips.

She’s planning a floral embroidery for her nameday gown, she explained as she picked one pretty spring flower after another to use for inspiration. By the time they reached the heart-tree clearing, she had a small bouquet in her hand. And now, as they linger for a moment so that Little Sam can teach Fox and Fang how to fetch a stick, she examines the glory-of-the-snows and buttercup anemones and violets and whatever else is in there while listening with one ear at Tormund telling Gilly about the rumors of three Craster wives living at the eastern-most parts of the Iron Mountains.

Jon, on the other hand, is standing across the pond with Sam by his side and Iselinde in his arms and Shireen, Squirrel, and Galladon by his feet while Eddison, who was born with an insatiable need for validation, sillies about for attention. He somersaults over moss-dappled grass, hops down from stumps and stones while ribbiting like a frog, and hides behind tree trunks and bushes only to pop back out with a loud _peekabo!_ that sends the babies giggling like mad (and that makes the parents laugh too).

It’s an endearing moment--and also the moment when Brienne finally gets an answer to her question.

When the babies are particularly adorable, Sam and Gilly exchange proud looks, and Tormund and his wife cup her belly with joined hands and look so in love it’s frankly a relief. Even Brienne and Percy share in the joy of seeing their boy so happy. Percy’s gaze might not stir a flutter in her belly the way Jaime’s always did, but she does feel something she can only describe as serenity, as mawkish as that sounds. Something she would assume Sansa feels too; however, when she observes the royal family, Brienne notices that Sansa only has eyes for her daughter while Jon… _Oh, Jon._

He’s not obvious about it. Brienne will give him that. Hadn’t she been observing as intently (and discreetly) as she is, she wouldn’t have noticed. But his eyes often seek out Sansa and either linger for just a beat too long or dart away so quickly one would think looking at the Queen was a punishable offense.

He’s falling for her.

It would explain his brooding last night. Granted, he’s always been a brooding sort of man, but when he’s among friends and family he’s no stranger to japes and laughter--and last night he barely said a word.

From what Brienne knows of Jon and his character, he would marry the mother of his child in a heartbeat no matter his feelings. From what she knows of Sansa’s girlhood dreams (and the romantic nature she’s learned to conceal) she _wants_ a husband--just as much as she wanted a child.

It _was_ sibling rivalry, then, and only Jon's affections have changed or they would be wed already. That's the answer, yes, but it only leads to another question: does she know and ignore it--or do romantic feelings between the two seem so impossible to her she remains oblivious?

It’s none of Brienne’s concern, of course, and yet when Gilly rounds up her children to nap, wash, and change before lunch, and Tormund chases after his giggling wife in the direction of the guesthouse, and Jon hands Iselinde back to Sansa before he and Sam wander off to finally talk in peace, Brienne gestures to Percy to take Galladon and leave her and the Queen alone. Something Sansa instantly picks up on, and remains where she is, securing her daughter to her chest with a long bit of fabric she wraps around them both before helping her daughter to the breast. As Jon leaves, he turns around once to look at his little family, but Sansa’s attention is still on her daughter and his face doesn’t perhaps fall--it’s more subtle than that--but there is a change. A touch of disappointment or perhaps resignation before he turns around and vanishes between the trees with Sam and two of the wolves.

“You seem happy, Your Grace,” Brienne says, but makes it sound more like a question than a statement.

“So do you. Do you like being a mother?”

“It’s quite fulfilling, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sansa says, smiling, and tugs the wrap to shield Iselinde’s face from the sunlight.

The princess is already half-asleep, her little fist resting on the swell of her mother’s breast, and Brienne realizes she shouldn’t stare at the Queen breastfeeding and looks away.

"They grow so quickly, though." Sansa starts strolling down a path leading deeper into the godswood, and Brienne follows suit. "She's so big already. I feel as if I'll blink one day and suddenly she's a toddler."

"I must admit I don't think they grow quickly enough. I long to put a sword in Galladon's hand. Teach him how to fight. But, I suppose, with my luck he'll end up preferring a quill over a sword like his father.” It comes out a tad bitter and Brienne shakes her head. “I don’t know why I said that. I consider myself very lucky. I never thought I’d have all this--especially not after…”

Brienne rolls her shoulders again, as if she can shrug off the burden of Jaime’s memory that still weighs over her. Even after all these years.

“Allow me to thank you again, Your Grace,” she says, “for keeping everything I confessed to yourself and never letting the gossip spread that far. My father never learned about my dealings with the Kingslayer. The day he gave me away, he believed me to be a maid. He died knowing I was wed, believing a carried a child, that my husband was the only intimacy I had ever known. He died in peace. I’m very grateful for that.”

“He _believed_ you carried a child?”

Brienne hesitates instinctively. It’s so long ago, now, that she and Sansa gingerly moved into a new dynamic of their relationship where the line between lady and servant blurred. Sansa ranted about Daenerys in a way that was decidedly unladylike and expressed hurt feelings over how Arya had grown more distant since Jon returned home. And Brienne, blushingly, shared how her relationship with Jaime deepened. She never did share her secret wish that Jaime would propose, though. It’s simply not something that comes naturally to her, this womanly type of friendship, and life at Evenfall hasn’t made it easier. 

The woman closest to her is Galladon’s wetnurse who’s breastfed him since he was but a month old when Brienne couldn’t stomach it anymore and wanted her body to belong to herself again. But they never speak about matters of the heart. Now Brienne is the lady and Brigit her servant and neither seems interested in blurring that line. But Brienne can’t expect Sansa to open up to her unless she shares something herself. She knows that much, at least. And, to be perfectly honest, she’s missed it. Offering a friend a little piece of herself and knowing it will be held and cherished (and being offered a little piece in return).

“I couldn’t do it,” she says, “be intimate with Percy. And he’s not the sort of man who forces himself on a woman--not even his wife. Not even on his wedding night. But I could tell Father was clinging to life, as if he couldn’t let go as long as the future of House Tarth was uncertain. And he was in so much pain. It was the maester who suggested lying. I protested at first, but the more my father suffered… A month into my marriage, I told him I was pregnant and he smiled and laughed and cried--and a few hours later he passed away. Holding my hand. Still smiling.”

Brienne’s eyes sting and she blinks away the sensation, swallows down the lump in her throat until she’s certain her voice will carry.

“I was inconsolable. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I felt alone in the world. Everyone I had ever loved, gone. Finally, Percy came to my chamber and crawled into my bed and held me and… I don’t know. It just happened. I needed the comfort, I suppose. In the morning I felt strange. Embarrassed. Exposed. But then my moonblood never came and my lie became a sort of truth and now I’m very happy Percy offered me comfort that night. I’m very happy the gods allowed me to be a mother. I never thought I would be one.”

“It becomes you,” Sansa says with a kind smile. “And Perceon seems like a lovely man--and a wonderful father.”

“He is." Brienne can't help but smile back at that. "We’re already discussing having more. I know I’m no spring chicken, but my maester says I’m in good shape. I could have at least two more, if we don’t wait too long between them. And I really would like for Galladon to have a sibling. There’s a lot of pressure on a lonely child.”

“Yes,” Sansa says, stroking her daughter’s back absentmindedly, a faraway look in her eyes.

Brienne noticed that same look earlier, when Little Sam helped Dickon to his feet after he stumbled over a root and comforted him with a hug. A look that suggested Sansa remembered her own childhood, that her thoughts took the same turn Brienne’s thoughts have taken so often since she boarded the ship with the Tarlys and she knew she was ready for her and Percy's discussion to become a decision.

“And you?” Brienne glances at her. “Will you have more children? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Sansa slows to a stop and takes a good look around the godswood. It lies quiet and empty, the only movement a reddish direwolf trailing behind them while nosing at the ground. 

“We touched upon it while discussing the terms of our arrangement, but we never decided anything. I suppose I wanted to take it one step at a time.”

“That’s sensible. And now?”

Sansa brings her hands together, folding the fingers of one hand over the thumb of the other. (A nervous habit of hers, Brienne remembers.)

“You’re right,” Sansa says, “you’re perfectly right. I might not literally be a lonely child, but I’ve often felt like one. There is a lot of pressure. A lot of responsibilities. I don’t want Iselinde to be the last of the Starks, but..." She straightens her posture with a deep inhale before continuing. "Jon and I got lucky on our first try too. If we try for another, we might not be as lucky, and I don’t know whether I can do that over and over. I’m not even sure I can do it once. Even if I want another child."

Brienne bows her head a little so that she doesn’t tower over Sansa and says in her softest voice, “Was it bad? Your time with Jon.”

“No,” she says and blushes such a brilliant red it makes Brienne think it wasn’t bad at all. “It’s… It’s… It’s complicated.”

“How could it not be? It must be quite the adjustment. Considering.”

Sansa huffs out a laugh, eyes downcast.

“When I was a girl,” Brienne says, “before I learned how beastly I appear to most men, I dreamed of being proposed to by a handsome lord. I dreamed of marrying and having children.”

“You did?” Sansa looks up at her with wide eyes, a gentle smile on her lips. “I didn’t know.”

“Not many do. I was too embarrassed to admit that someone like me had dreamed of something like that. But I did. And then I buried those dreams, but what is buried isn’t gone. It’s just hidden. Waiting to be uncovered. I still wanted it. I still _waited_ for it,” she says, hoping Sansa understands her meaning without having to say it out loud, “but it never happened. Not until Percy. And he did it all. He courted me, declared his undying love for me, and proposed to me. It was perfect in every way. He’s handsome and kind and--to be perfectly honest sometimes he reminds me a bit of Podrick, which makes it easier in some ways and harder in others--but I didn’t love him. He wasn’t…”

She sighs and shakes her head at her own foolish self.

“He’s not ser Jaime,” Sansa murmurs with such an empathetic look in her eyes Brienne's own eyes sting again.

“No. He’s not. I told Percy as much--that I didn’t love him, I mean, and that I couldn’t promise I ever would. But he only said, ‘That’s all right. I’ll love enough for two.’”

Sansa’s smile slips before she catches herself and forces it back in place.

“I know how it sounds,” Brienne says. “But it works for us. I’ve grown to love him in my own way. He treats me well, he loves me dearly, he’s the father of my child. And, sometimes, when the mood strikes,” she adds with a proud tilt of her chin, “I visit his bed. And it’s rather satisfying.”

Sansa breathes out a chuckle, eyes glittering. “Lady Brienne!”

Brienne keeps her head high and tries to suppress a smile (and doesn't care at all when she fails). “It might not be what it was with Jaime, but I have no complaints. I’m a woman. I have needs and a husband who wants to fulfill them.”

Sansa nods slowly and Brienne thinks she knows just what she means. They’ve never talked about King Drustan, but Tormund the Telltale told Sam that the King once proposed to Sansa and she chose the North over love and turned him down, and Sam told Brienne on the journey here. Perhaps Sansa left her heart with King Drustan--even though he moved on and chose to give his to someone else, as was his duty as the head of his House. Perhaps Sansa left her heart with the King and still found pleasure in her cousin’s bed, despite who he once was to her. Complicated indeed.

“I’ll always love ser Jaime,” Brienne says. “He was the one for me. But I wasn’t the one for him. And I understand it now. Now that I have Galladon, I understand it. He wouldn’t have been the man I loved had he stayed with me when his sister and his unborn child were in danger. His duty lay with them, not me. And I know what he and I did was unwise and improper, but I'm glad I had that experience. I'm glad I've known passion like that. But I don’t want it again.”

Sansa does a poor job at hiding her doubt, but she also watches Brienne intently and it's enough encouragement to keep talking.

“If you never want to be intimate with Jon again, I understand. I think anyone would understand. But if you _do_ want Iselinde to have siblings, give it time. You don’t have to make any decisions now. This is not my place, perhaps, but your mother once confided in me that she did not love your father at first. That their love grew over the years as they built their life together. My passionate love affair with Jaime was wonderful--and horrible. I thought I had been hurt before, but that was..." She releases a shaky breath. "What I have with Percy means more to me. It might not be as intense, but I believe our marriage might be like Lady Catelyn’s and Lord Stark’s. Strong, steady, long lasting. It’s worth more.”

Brienne quiets to let her words sink in. Under a slightly furrowed brow, Sansa’s eyes flit between Brienne’s as if she’s trying to find the hidden meaning, even though Brienne hardly was subtle. But then Sansa nods again, smiling this time, and Brienne thinks her words helped.

“If you ever need advice, Your Grace,” she says, falling back a step and giving the Queen the space to put some emotional distance between them if she so chooses, “I’ll always be there for you. I know what it’s like when one loves enough for two. I know it can work.”

Sansa’s nostrils flare and she blinks rapidly as she looks away. Yes, she knows. She’s noticed how Jon feels and feels guilty for being unable to return those feelings. And while Brienne doubts this single conversation will have Sansa rushing into the next stage of her relationship with Jon, perhaps it at least no longer seems that foreign to her. Perhaps she can envision a future where she has the family of which she always dreamed.

As they head back to the courtyard, Brienne walks a bit taller.

* * *

* * *

One boring afternoon at the Wall, Sam found an old traveling journal in the rundown library and spent the rest of the day poring over it. Written over three hundred years ago by a Lord Algood, it described landmarks now ruined and keeps no longer standing and once trodden paths now swallowed by grass, moss, and weeds as more and more northerners favored the Kingsroad. It described Joardiswater too, at length, as Algood spent several weeks at the six miles long (and three miles wide and about four foot deep) mere to study the rich wildlife. 

“It’s especially known for its birds,” Sam says just to fill a silence Jon has stubbornly kept ever since they rode through Winterfell’s gates with Ghost and Shy loping next to them. “Many birds brood here, even species one might not see this far north, like shoveler and garganey and…” Counting on his fingers, Sam lists all the different birds he remembers from the journal. “It’s warmer than most meres, you see. They’re usually not very warm at all. Do you know the difference between a mere and a lake?”

Without waiting for an answer, he explains it happily while moving down on one knee to inspect the water’s edge and the long-stemmed green plants growing there. 

“Then there are insects and plants, of course. In fact, it’s so famous for its many willow trees growing along the shore most call it Willowsmere--or just the mere--although it’s not its name. It’s Joardiswater. Did you know? Not many do--nor do they know why. Algood spent a good five pages musing about it. He asked locals, he scoured books in the Winterfell library--he was friendly with the King--but he found nothing. So I tried finding out as well, but I found no records of it anywhere! Maester Aemon didn’t know either! 

“Another maester--Maester Laenus, if I remember correctly and I usually do”--he fires off a grin--”spent four whole years here one summer to study the insects and he named a diving beetle after it. The joardis beetle. It's rather pretty with elytral markings that look like golden freckles. Perhaps I should bring Little Sam out here tomorrow to look for one. He’s taken such an interest in animals--even insects! He was Lord Algood’s inspiration. Maester Laenus, that is, not Little Sam.” Another grin. “See here?” Sam pulls up a stem. “This is northern water horsetail. It grows all over. Persistent little bugger--and good that it is. It’s edible! Cooked _and_ raw.”

To demonstrate, he pinches off one strobilus and pops it into his mouth. “See? Quite nutritious and not half bad. And, unlike _common_ horsetail, it’s safe to consume for man and cattle alike. It has quite a few medicinal properties as well, if prepared correctly. Eases itching and swelling--particularly from insect bites--and it can stop bleeding, which is very practical if a woman has a heavy flow. Does Sansa have a heavy--” Sam shuts his mouth with a click, heat spreading across his body. “I didn’t mean-- I’m sure your maester… He is rather clever. Even Archmaester Ebrose said so and, uh”--he pushes himself back on his feet and brushes grass off his knee. “Yes. Rather versatile plant, the northern water horsetail. Bit too long a name, though, if you ask me.”

He looks at Jon with a nervous grin and finds his friend squinting at him, a smile twitching at his lips.

“You done?”

“Yeah. Sorry. It’s just, you’re really quiet and…” Sam straightens his back, takes a deep breath, and blurts out what he’s been dying to ask ever since they arrived yesterday. “You’re angry with me, aren’t you. You’re upset over Eddy. That I didn’t name him after you.”

“I never thought you would.”

“But I would’ve. It was Gilly. She’s the one who refused.”

“You blame your wife? What kind of man are you, Sam."

“It’s the truth! And when your wife’s been in labor for sixteen hours and she wants to name your baby after the man who saved your life and not the man who…Well. You know. But if we have another one, he’ll be a Jon. I promise.”

Jon lifts one corner of his mouth. “And why would Gilly go along with that?”

“She doesn’t hate you, Jon. Not really. After King’s Landing… Well, she was emotional--you know what pregnant women are like--and she started thinking back on everything. How you didn’t want to help her. Remember? At Craster’s Keep. And how you didn’t seem to care about what Daenerys did to my father and brother. And how you didn’t even try to he--”

“And you?” Jon narrows his eyes and lifts his chin, transforming his crooked smile into more of a snarl. “Did you care about me? Did you spend even one moment thinking about how _I_ was doing?”

He shakes his head and huffs out a breath and Sam can’t help but take a step back to put some distance between them.

“Everyone wanted something from me. Daenerys wanted an obedient servant on his knees. Sansa wanted a champion, a protector. The North a hero, an unyielding king. Arya wanted… I still don’t know what. I didn’t even know where she was most of the time. Been apart for years, finally reunited, and she avoided me. Old Jon, I suppose. That's what she wanted. Someone I couldn’t be anymore. And you? You wanted a bleeding executioner. Someone who could swing the sword for you by chasing a throne I didn’t even want. That’s what telling me the truth meant to you. A death sentence for her, aye, but did you ever realize it was one for me too? Just a few words, that’s all it took and the man I was didn’t exist anymore."

"Well," Sam starts, only to quiet the instant he notices Jon's drawing himself up with a big intake of breath.

"It made me question _everything,_ Sam! Who I was, why I felt the things I felt, what I should do, where I belonged, whether I was ever loved, whether anyone would even want me after they found out. Why would they? If even my best friend stopped seeing me as Jon the moment he found out and couldn’t even have the decency to tell me with some fucking empathy--” Jon sucks in a shuddering breath and falls back a step, staring at the ground with his shoulders at his ears. “Did it even cross your mind?” he asks, quietly. “What it would do to me?”

“Not really,” Sam mumbles, staring at his feet. “I was too upset. You’re right about my wanting to hurt her. Wanting _you_ to hurt her for me. I did. And not just for revenge. I wanted her gone. To protect my mother and sister. To protect everyone. The thought of her ruling Westeros terrified me. But it did occur to me. Later. Too late. Once I realized you were stuck. When you said you would marsh all your soldiers south even though they were still healing. The Jon I knew would _never_. That’s when I realized you were as terrified of her as I was.”

“You could’ve said something.”

“I didn’t know what to say. Or, at least, I didn’t know how to say it. And you were leaving. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again so I thought it was better to just pretend everything was fine."

Jon breathes out a joyless laugh. “It took us, what, five days to prepare everything before we left. Five days of you avoiding me just like everyone else.”

“I didn’t _avoid_ \--”

“No? Then how come I didn’t learn Gilly was pregnant until I hugged her goodbye? And she was big too."

Sam swallows nervously. Beads of sweat pop up along his neck and he drags a hand over it to wipe the moisture off. “I was disappointed. I know it’s not fair, Jon, I do. But you were my hero--and around Daenerys you were not heroic. Not at all. And I understand that. I really do. I wouldn’t have been a hero either. But I never thought you’d be as craven as I am and seeing your hero be nothing but a man… With everything else going on, I didn't know how to handle it."

“Yeah, I know.” Jon looks out over the mere with dark, wounded eyes. “You’re not alone in that.”

“Doesn’t make it right, though. You're right. I should’ve talked to you. But I didn’t. So, if you’d like, you can hit me. A good old punch in the face should set things right, shouldn’t it? Or wrestle me to the ground or something. You can throw me in the mere, if you like. Cathartic, I imagine. A good push and I’ll make a rather impressive splash."

At first Jon frowns at him, but then that frown smooths out into a genuine smile that turns into a quick and easy laugh that warms Sam from his heart and all the way down to his toes.

“No, that’s all right.”

“You sure? It might make you feel better.” Sam nods, grinning. “I'll look absolutely pathetic."

Jon shakes his head fondly at him. “ _This_ is making me feel better. Talking to you. I’m not angry anymore, Sam. Might’ve sounded like it, but I’m not. I’ve had this conversation in my head so many times over the years. I just needed you to finally hear it.”

Sam inches closer. “So how _are_ you doing? With everything. When Tormund visited he told me you were struggling a bit. More than a bit, really.”

“Yeah, I was. It’s why I stayed away. I needed some time alone. To breathe. Clear my head. All of that. But it’s better now.”

“And now you have a family. A beautiful daughter.”

“Aye.” A smile grows on Jon’s face until he’s beaming like the proud father he is. “I’m happy, Sam. I am.”

“I know what your raven said,” Sam says, carefully, “but Tormund suggested that you and Sansa…” He pumps his eyebrows. “Well?”

Jon’s smile fades. “Just because Tormund says something, it doesn’t make it true.”

“So you two aren’t…”

“No. It’s not like that. It’s an arrangement. Nothing more.”

“Oh. So no marriage, then?”

“No.”

“And no ruling together either, I gather.”

“No,” Jon says, but this time the curt answer sounds a little less so. “I don’t want to. I’m planning on doing something else. It’s why I wanted us to come here. I’d like your advice, if you don’t mind.” Jon whistles at Shadow, who instantly trots to him and waits patiently for him to pull a notebook out of the saddlebags before she leaves his side to drink from the mere. “What do you think?”

Sam flips the notebook open and skims through several pages of Jon’s sprawling hand-writing and surprisingly good sketches. “Here?”

“Yeah. I think it would be a good place for it.” He gestures at an open area between the mere and the low mountains in the distance. “Over there.”

“You seem to have it all planned out rather well,” Sam says, handing back the book. “Don’t know why you need me.”

“I don’t have any money. I need a loan.”

“I’m sure Sansa would--”

“No. I know she’d give me anything I needed, but I don’t want to have to run to her whenever I need money. What, should I ask her for a gold dragon when it’s her nameday so I can buy her a gift too?” Jon purses his lips, shaking his head. “I want to do this myself. I’ll pay you back. With interest.”

“But Jon!” Sam grabs his arm in excitement. “You _have_ money. You have Dragonstone. People live there, you know. Sheep farmers. The island’s a good place for it and there’s a small village there now. They pay their taxes to you. A steward’s been taking care of everything. He’s paid your taxes to the crown, he’s paid your staff and himself, and the rest is turning into a nice little nest egg. You’re not _rich_ perhaps, but you do have funds. Give it a few years and you’ll have what you need. Bran set it all up after you got your pardon.”

“I don’t want Dragonstone.”

“But what about your children? Your second-born could inherit it.”

“My second-born?” Jon laughs bitterly. “I don’t want it. Not for me or any future generations. I am _not_ a Targaryen--and neither is my daughter. She’s a Stark. Only a Stark.”

“Then sell it. Sell it back to the crown. King Drustan's coming tomorrow, isn't he? You should talk to him."

Lips pressed tight, Jon sniffs and walks over to Shadow to tuck the notebook back into the saddlebags. “Aye, maybe I should.”

“Have you met him?"

“Not yet.” Jon keeps his back to Sam and fidgets with the straps for longer than necessary. “We should head back. Time for lunch.”

Without waiting for a reply, he swings himself up in the saddle and sets course for Winterfell.

Sam observes his moody friend for a moment. Just an arrangement, he said. But just because Jon says something, it doesn't make it true either.

* * *

“Mind your elbow.” Jon taps Brienne’s arm; she lifts it a touch. “And remember to move your hips when you thrust. Flow into the movement.”

He takes several steps back to watch her attempt, and when the tip of the quarterstaff connects with the dummy, Sam’s glad he’s sitting even farther away on an old barrel to watch them spar. He wouldn’t want to be at the end of that blow.

Once Brienne learned that Jon has been teaching the guards of Winterfell how to fight with quarterstaves, she wanted a go too. Exactly how Jon himself learned is unclear. But when he and Sansa shared that Bran’s alive and were equally vague about that, Sam knew it was connected somehow. He’ll know more in time, he gathers. Now that he and Jon have cleared the air and are brothers again, he knows they’ll start talking properly given time. But until then, Sam is left to figure out how Jon feels about Sansa (and how she feels about him) all on his own--and figure it out he will.

It’s the only reason why he’s out here. He’s not _that_ interested in the actual fighting, but when Sansa decided to watch, so did Sam.

As most of the castle is rushing to prepare for tomorrow’s festivities and the courtyard is teeming with people, they’re in a secluded corner where no one passes through. The echoes of Brienne’s grunts and breaths, of the staff hitting the dummy, bounce between the walls. She’s a quick learner and so strong Sam jokes that perhaps Jon should reconsider the sparring lest she ruins his pretty face. But then they’re at it after all, circling one another, and despite himself, Sam gets sucked into the dance-like display and doesn’t notice a fifth person arriving until copper flashes in his peripheral vision.

It’s Sansa, her hair fanning out and gleaming in the sun as she’s lifted up and spun around by the King of the Six Kingdoms. While he’s usually in sweeping robes of finest fabrics, he now wears simple (but well-made) riding attire that must’ve made him look like an ordinary traveler to the servants, considering how no one followed him or rushed to alert the Queen.

“You’re here early,” Sansa says, her hands resting on his shoulders (while his hands rest on her waist). “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“I’ve been in a cabin with a three year old who asks questions from sunup to sundown about everything she sees, hears, smells, tastes… If I’d had to share a wheelhouse with Mara for even an hour, I would’ve burst.”

“Is Cora not with you?”

Drustan releases Sansa. “Don’t be cross--”

“No. No, you didn’t. Not again!”

“I’m afraid I did.”

“The boys are barely two years old, Drustan! You have to let her rest.”

“Oh, you think this was my choice? No no. It’s all her. She’s very happy, I assure you. Happy and nauseated. I couldn’t get her on a ship if I so bribed her with every jewel in the known world. It’s just me and Mara and her septa--and they’re driving me half mad. I rode ahead with Athor. I needed the air, the open landscapes. You might be savages up here, but I don’t deny the land has its own rough kind of beauty.”

He fires off a smile; she shoots him an admonishing look too fond to do any damage.

“You shouldn’t do that. Ride all that way alone.”

“I wasn’t alone. I had Athor.” He leans in a touch closer. “Or are you telling me we are not safe in your North?”

“Of course you’re safe. But it’s not proper. Will you ever start acting like a king?”

"Well, you see, I am a king. And so, however I choose to act is how a king acts.”

“Oh, you’re incorrigible.”

“Thank you,” he says with a smirk too charming to be allowed, and she presses her lips together as if to fight the smile that glitters in her eyes. “My sweet Sansa,” he says, tenderly. “You look well.”

“I am. I’m very well.”

She does look well. Sam has noticed it too. Brighter eyes, rosier cheeks, warmer smiles. And it’s not all Iselinde either. It can’t be. Jon must’ve contributed too, and Sam turns to him so they can smile together at how Sansa has blossomed because of him. But while Brienne stands there, lance straight with the staff in her hand, waiting to be noticed by the king, Jon looks like a wolf scowling at an intruder nosing at his territory. An intruder whose throat he’s prepared to rip into ribbons at any wrong move. But the moment Sansa excuses herself to speak to the steward and Drustan turns his attention to them, Jon schools his expression into a neutral mask he keeps firmly in place as Drustan greets first Brienne and then Sam (and they exchange the usual pleasantries required of highborns). But when Drustan moves to Jon with an easy smile, the mask starts looking a bit flimsy.

“Ah," Drustan says, gesturing at Jon with both hands, "this must be the famous Jon Snow.”

Jon just barely bows his head in respect. “Your Grace.”

“I’ve been told you’re an excellent swordsman--and now I see you fighting with staves too. Very impressive.”

“Do you fight?”

Drustan hums, tilting his head from side to side. “A little. My cousin, Oberyn, taught me when I was a boy. It’s invigorating, I find. More exciting than swords. More creative, no?”

“Well,” Jon’s eyes harden again, a lupine glint in them as he nods at a rack of staves by the wall, “we have more than enough staves. If you care to join us. Your Grace.”

“Tempting.” Drustan tips his head back and smiles down at the hungry wolf. “But I’m afraid it would make me a bad guest. Attacking the Queen’s… _cousin_ first thing I do? No. I shall make myself presentable in time for the lovely supper the Queen will no doubt serve in a few hours. And, if I have any time over, I must admit I’m desperate for a game of cyvasse. Sea travel dulls the mind, I find. I need to sharpen it. You don’t happen to play, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Ah. Unfortunate. Perhaps I’m still lucky?” Drustan looks at Brienne. “Last time I met your husband, he had the gall to beat me. I aim to get my revenge. Does my lady think I can convince him to play?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Brienne says with barely held back pride. “I know he would love nothing more than to play with you.”

“Excellent. Well, don’t let my presence stop you.” He gestures at them to keep sparring. “Please.”

If he picked up on Jon’s hostility, he doesn’t show it. He was always rather good at that, though. In the early days of Bran’s rule, Sam quickly learned that the Prince of Dorne had two expressions: either he looked like the most bored man alive (even though he paid attention to and noticed everything going on around him), or he smiled with the confidence of a man who’s been beloved since birth by all--family, servants, the people and probably the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea too.

The only time Sam has seen glimpses of whom Drustan must be in private, has been when he’s interacted with someone close to him, like his wife or Sansa. And when Sansa returns now, he lights up with a warm, genuine smile--a warm, genuine smile she mirrors.

Something Jon notices too. While he manages to control his expression, his white-knuckled grip on the staff betrays his true feelings. He’s jealous. Even though Drustan and Sansa haven’t done anything untoward. Well, there was the hug, Sam supposes. And here, where others can’t see them, they’ve dropped the formalities expected of the two most powerful people in Westeros. Clearly comfortable in each other’s presence, they stand closely together and whisper and giggle. Sam remembers them from before, though, when Sansa blushed like a shy maid and her eyes shone like stars whenever she interacted with Drustan. They don't now. Not in that way, at least. To Sam they look less like lovers, and more like two old friends catching up and gossiping. But to a man in love, jealousy will make even the most innocent touches sting. Small wonder Jon casts long, dark looks after them when they stroll off together after the steward informs them the guest chamber stands ready. Small wonder he throws himself back into sparring to work through his feelings the best way he knows. Small wonder he sees a threat where Sam very much doubts there is one.

"You all right?" Sam asks him, later, when Brienne has left to take a bath and Sam is helping Jon putting back the training dummies and the staves.

“I’m fine.”

“You love her.”

Jon drops the dummy he was holding with a sigh. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think she--”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jon says, gaze as firm as his tone.

“So what _do_ you want to do? We have a few hours to kill.”

Jon scrunches up his face as he thinks. “I think I’d like to fish. Haven’t fished in weeks. If you think you can manage an hour without rambling so you don't scare off the fish."

“I can try,” Sam says, grinning.

They find a good spot on the eastern shore of Joardiswater where a fallen willow tree provides them with a place to sit. Over the years, countless northern behinds have worn down the bark and left the trunk smooth and comfortable. 

“I should build a boat,” Jon says, as a pair of swans glides past them. “Just a small rowboat. Can’t be too hard, can it?”

“Not for Jon the Builder.”

Jon smiles, shaking his head. “Tormund really can’t keep his bleeding mouth shut, can he.”

“He loves you.”

“Yeah.”

Then silence falls over them. It’s not quite comfortable--but then Sam rarely finds silence comfortable. That’s why he avoided Jon during those days between telling him the truth and saying goodbye. Not as a punishment. Not because he hated Jon. But because he didn’t know what to say and he feared he’d end up rambling just to fill the silence and say too much, say the wrong things, make everything worse when he wasn't sure how much more pain and conflict he could handle before he broke. But maybe silence is exactly what Jon needed back then, when he felt lost and unloved. Just the silent, undemanding presence of his best friend and brother. 

So that’s what Sam gives him now. As much as his impulse tells him to ramble about everything and nothing, as often as he draws a breath to speak before he catches himself, he stays completely silent as the sun falls lower and lower in the sky and they pull up one fish after another.

He's rather proud of himself when Jon is the one who finally breaks that silence.

“Thank you,” he says, quietly, as bundles up the fish to hang from Shadow's saddlebags. “For asking earlier. I appreciate it. Even if I’m not…” His voice fails and Sam could swear he sees tears shimmering in Jon’s eyes. But then Jon blinks and his eyes clear, and after a deep breath, he continues in a voice slightly hoarser than before. “I’m not ready to talk. It’s too… It's too complicated.”

“I don’t think she’s--” Sam holds up his hands when Jon heaves a deep, bone-tired sigh. “Just listen, please. I know what you said and I heard you. We don’t have to say anything else after this. I just have to tell you I don't think she's in love with King Drustan. She doesn’t look it.”

Jon twists his mouth into an unconvinced smile, mounts his horse, and rides off in a sullen mood for the second time today.

Maybe he’s noticed what Sam hasn’t been able to miss, then. No, she doesn’t look in love with Drustan, but she doesn’t look in love with Jon either.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Jon should let it go. He should stop thinking about the way Drustan and Sansa interact, how they have that comfortable ease and shorthand of two people who know each other inside and out. (Something he's never had for all his relationships have been built on lies and deceit.) He should let it go. It's not as if he has a right to be jealous. Sansa isn't his. And she’s said it herself that she doesn’t love Drustan anymore. She chose the North over him. She fucked him to get over Jon. And she did say, before she and Jon started this whole mess, that if they went through with it, they would never lie with anyone else.

He has no reason to believe that has changed--and yet when he sees them together, he reverts to the sullen bastard boy who'll never be good enough no matter how hard he tries. When he sees them together, he questions everything Sansa and he agreed upon that night that wasn't quite their wedding night. When he sees them together, he can't help but picture them flushed and entangled between ivory silk. And so, the following afternoon, when Drustan passes him and Brienne squeezing in a sparring session before they all have to go through the long preparations highborns go through the get ready for a feast when all that’s needed, really, is a bath and some clean clothes, Jon can’t help but repeat yesterday’s offer.

This time, Drustan accepts.

“What made you change your mind?” Jon asks as he selects a staff.

“This is what you Northmen do, isn’t it? Fight a stranger to assess his character.”

“Is it?”

“It’s what Lady Reed did when she and Sansa came to visit me in Dorne."

“Yeah, she did it to me too.”

“Ah. Then perhaps it’s just what Lady Reed does.”

“No,” Jon says, baring his teeth in a smile. “I don’t think it is.”

“Nor do I,” Drustan says with that stupid fucking smirk of his. Then, with a discreet nod, he indicates the spot on the balcony Sansa favors when she lets sparring provide her with entertainment for a moment. “She’s watching.”

Jon’s eyes dart there on their own volition and, sure enough, there stands Sansa, all alone with her hands resting on the railing and her eyes resting on the two men about to fight.

He adjusts his grip. "She likes watching.”

“Oh, I know,” Drustan says, grabbing a staff of his own.

He keeps that smirk on his face even as they slowly start circling one another, looking for an in. It creeps under Jon’s skin, that smirk, grates at his defenses, but he knows how to find his inner calm and he inhales deeply through his nose, centers himself, and gets to work.

Jon has more natural talent, he finds. He’s quicker, stronger, more agile. He reads his opponent better while Drustan, although good at controlling his expression, forgets his body language and reveals the movements he plans to make before he makes them. Drustan has decades of experience on him, though, and the fight is more equal than Jon cares to admit. For the first time since he left the valley where Nodareoh kept him on his toes, he has to truly focus. Up above, the clouds hang heavy and dark, trapping the late spring heat in the dusty corner of the courtyard. Strands of hair have escaped his bun. He’s sweating through the linen of his tunic. Beads of sweat run down his face, sticking whirled up dust to his skin, and Drustan doesn’t look much better. 

He’s still smiling, though. Nothing ruffles that man’s feathers. Not until thunder rumbles in the distance and he turns his head reflexively to look at the sky. This is Jon's chance to finally knock the prat off his feet. He moves forward, thrusts--and Drustan evades the attack, swings his staff, and connects it with the back of Jon’s knees.

Jon hits the ground with an _oomph,_ his eyes moving to the balcony just in time to see Sansa leaving.

Well, _fuck_. Drustan played him like a harp. She probably suspected he would, stayed only for as long as it took to get it confirmed. Stayed only to see Jon beaten. He props himself up on his elbows and exhales sharply, a loose strand of hair fluttering in front of his eyes. When he looks up at Drustan, the man has extended a hand to help him up. Biting back a curse, Jon accepts the gesture and lets himself be pulled to his feet.

“Again?” Drustan’s sparkling eyes cut to the empty balcony before returning to Jon. “Or did you lose your motivation?”

“I did not. Again.”

They take their positions. Barely three moves later, the sky opens up and showers them with raindrops fatter than jewels. Although Jon wants to keep going, the ground quickly becomes muddy and Drustan gracefully bows out by pointing out Sansa would be very disappointed in the both of them if they were to slip and injure themselves. He even has the nerve to compliment Jon on his technique, claim he enjoyed himself, and ask for a rematch tomorrow before withdrawing to the guest house for a warmth bath.

Jon could do with one himself. He must look a mess and smell even worse.

After finding a servant and asking her to fill the tub in the chamber opposite his and Sansa's, he stalks through the hallways of Winterfell to fetch his robe and the new clothes the seamstress sewed for him.

He pulls the door open and steps inside. Closes it behind him. 

A sharp gasps makes him freeze.

Sansa is in bed with her skirts pulled up and her hands between her legs and her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving. Her pink tongue darts out to wet her parted lips. “I didn’t expect…” Her lashes flutter. Then she sits up, pulls down her skirts, smooths out her hair, brushes a lock away from her cheek, spreading her scent all over herself without thinking, and Jon can't help but lick his lips too. “You didn’t fight long.”

“It started raining," he says and hates how husky his voice sounds.

“Yes,” she breathes out, eyes roving over his body. 

She wants him. _Finally_. But is it truly him she wants? Since Iselinde was born, she’s watched Jon fight so many times and this has _never_ happened. Not until her lover returned to Winterfell and threw Jon to the ground. A lover she’s flirted with--a lover she’s exchanged touches with--again and again since he arrived yesterday. Those little touches every bleeding set of parents at Winterfell shares except Jon and Sansa.

 _Did you think of me or him?_

Can she see the question in his eyes? Can she see it as clearly as he can see the question in hers? One born from lust and desperation, from a want unwanted.

“No,” he tells her, low and quiet.

Averting her gaze, Sansa pulls the furs over her body, and Jon grabs his clothes and leaves without a word.

She might've wanted him in that moment, aye--she might've even wanted him badly--but had they been weak, had they given into their bodies' desires, they wouldn't have found joy and satisfaction waiting for them in the afterglow.

They would've found regret.


	24. Winged Horses & Stubborn Mules

He washes quickly, flees to his old chamber, and sits in bed with a book in his hands, watching the words blur on the page and listening to the maids emptying the tub and refilling it for the queen.

They’re supposed to arrive at the feast as a family, him and her and the baby (even though he’s little more than a stud horse). Normally, he would’ve sat on the divan and actually read while he waited, but today...

Jon taps his fingers against the cover, his foot against the floor. Lets out a breath through lax lips and dumps the book on the nightstand as he flops back in bed to stare up at the ceiling instead.

A memory comes to him then of Sansa standing in this chamber, one arm shielding her breasts and her mask shielding her emotions. She asked him whether he’d lain with someone else in his bed--a question he’s never bothered to ask her. He’s barely asked her a thing about her relationship with Drustan, doesn’t know how discreet they were or how often they met or even where they usually stayed.

Have they fucked all over Winterfell? In the broken tower and the hot springs and the bathtub and her bed.

 _Their_ bed.

Jon shoots to his feet, pacing restlessly between his desk and the door as if the movement will shake off the uneasiness creeping along his skin.

It doesn’t matter, though, does it? She wasn’t his, then.

_She’s not yours now, either._

“But we promised,” he whispers into the empty room before shutting his mouth and returning to bed, returning to listening to doors opening and closing, to handmaidens chattering, to Iselinde cooing, to women giggling (and never sounding like Sansa).

(No matter how hard he thinks back, he can’t remember whether they actually _promised_.)

Only when he’s certain she’s ready does he leave the bed and knock on the door to Sansa’s chamber. 

Pale flowers plucked from an early blooming apple branch decorate her softly curled hair, and pink dog-roses embroidered by her own hand climb up an airy green dress and wind around her otherwise bare arms and shoulders (to hide the scars he knows by heart). She’s spring-draped, petal-soft, sweet-scented--and utterly utterly breathtaking. But he forces himself to breathe after all (and ignores the impulse to nose at her neck and find traces of _her_ beneath all that apple bloom).

“You ready?”

“Yes.” She steps into silk sandals and picks up Iselinde, who’s in a pink tunic embroidered with green leaves and matches her mother so well, she looks like another rose perched on Sansa’s hip. “Jon. Thank you. For not--”

“Yeah,” he says and opens the door for her. 

The distance between her chamber and the Great Hall winds longer than the Kingsroad. The whole way, he carries the weight of their silence on his shoulders. Once the throng of waiting guests swallows them and their silence too, it’s the relief of shrugging off his ranger’s gear after a three day march across snowy moors and mountains. Everyone wants a glimpse of the princess, wants to shower her with gifts and her parents with compliments, and for a moment he’s nothing but a proud father who accepts it all with a surprisingly easy smile.

The probing looks don’t come until they’re all seated, and Jon the Stud Horse sits on the Queen’s left like the prince consort he’ll never become. At the castle, people mind their tongues, but out in the North people must wonder, mustn’t they, why he and Sansa are not wed. He _is_ a lord and was a prince, was a king.

(Was her brother.)

They look at Drustan too, who sits to Sansa’s right with the ease of a man who knows he belongs unlike Jon who can’t help but feel his place still is in the back with the rest of the rabble where once he would’ve gotten drunker than what’s sensible while stealing glances at some pretty girl above his station. Someone forbidden the Bastard of Winterfell.

The fine food they chose together weeks ago turns to wood pulp between his teeth. A chewy tasteless mass he grinds and grinds and grinds before washing it down with water. Through the corner of his eye, he glances at a queen with impeccable table manners who converses easily with her honored guest. Jon stifles a sigh and keeps eating.

A warm nose nudges his hand. Without caring whether anyone sees it, Jon grabs a grilled quail from his plate and feeds Ghost underneath the table. 

Sansa’s head turns slightly to him then, her hair a copper gloss beneath the light of the chandeliers, but instead of admonishing him with a stern look, warmth softens the curve of her mouth and when she returns to her food, Jon catches her sneaking a treat to Lamb too. She even shoots him a quick glance, mouth still curved in a small smile just for him, and for a moment they’re children again. For a moment, they’re Starks sharing a connection nothing can threaten and the gentle glow of nostalgia settles over the Great Hall, softening the once-sharp edges between light and shadow, helping him see that the tension he detects in the room is coming not from them but from him.

Before him is a feast much like the feasts of his childhood. Most of the faces have changed, aye, and Ned Stark rarely employed musicians (no matter how much his eldest daughter begged), but the energy is the same. The people before him are happy and relaxed, thriving after years of peace and knowing they’re safe at Winterfell, safe with the Queen who won’t interrupt this fine evening to feed off their fear by playing cruel games or reminding them she holds all their fates in her hands. And so they sup and laugh and sing along to the music--and get so lost in their cups and conversation they let the children mind themselves. 

All seated at the same table, the youths sip wine and ale and, red-faced and teenage-loud, practice the mating dances they’ll soon have to perfect when they become men and women grown. A slightly younger flock tosses food at one another to catch with their mouths when they think no one’s watching, and hides their giggles in their hands whenever someone aims a stern look their way. Squirrel stands on the bench next to his papa and, holding Tormund’s beard firmly, rocks his body to _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ (while his father guffaws louder than the music). With a bundle that looks suspiciously similar to a napkin filled with food, Little Sam crawls on all fours across the floor and curls up with Lamb and Ghost to feed them more treats. Dickon watches them over his father’s shoulder for barely a moment before joining his big brother, and it becomes so crowded beneath the head table that Jon puts his plate in his lap and scoots his chair backwards to give them room. Shireen and Galladon compete in who can make the biggest mess of their mashed tubers and buttered carrots, leaving poor Gilly so distracted she doesn’t notice Eddison balancing on a wildling man’s shoulders until he fumbles after the chandelier hanging above the table and sets it swinging. Flushed, she flies to her feet, stills the chandelier with one hand and scoops up her child with the other before disciplining him with a hushed voice while shooting Jon and Sansa apologetic looks.

Jon only laughs, thoughts wandering back to little Bran who preferred heights to ground levels and climbed before he could walk. Once he even succeeded where Eddison failed and swung happily from the (thankfully unlit) chandelier while Mordane fluttered around like a frantic hen in her septa’s robes, shouting for help while Bran’s laughter rang out in the Great Hall (all to the delight of Jon, Robb, and Theon, who looked on from behind a corner).

As always, Jon turns to Sansa in hopes of seeing her smile back at him, seeing that her thoughts wandered down the same lane of memories, seeing his dream reflected in her eyes. Being around all these families, that dream grows stronger within him by the moment. He wants nothing more than to give his daughter a big, rowdy family so that she never learns the feeling of being completely, depressingly alone. He wants nothing more than the life painted by his mind whenever he drifted off to sleep by the Iselind. There's nothing of the greenseer in him, though. Sansa is busy introducing their daughter to little princess Mara and never sees Eddison’s antics, isn’t reminded of Bran and noisy families, doesn’t look at Jon at all. Drustan does, though. He even smiles at Jon, as if to include him, but it only makes Jon feel more left out.

Last night at supper Drustan told them his daughter had been dying to meet the only other princess in Westeros. And she does look excited, all dimpled smiles and well-rehearsed courtesies she delivers to a gurgling baby who has no concept of court manners or royal titles. Iselinde loves other children, though, and stretches out her tiny hands and giggles excitedly until Mara is satisfied she’s been a perfectly well-mannered young princess, and slides off her father’s lap, grabs his hand, and leads him away.

Only then does Sansa turn around until she faces the wall (and Jon). She says nothing of the fact that he’s sitting almost at the fireplace with a plate in his lap so _that_ she must’ve noticed at least. She just lays their daughter to her breast and tucks Iselinde’s failing hand to her chest while trying to get the distracted baby to latch on. An apple blossom has fallen to her shoulder. Jon doesn’t pick it up, doesn't return it to its place upon her head, doesn't even point it out.

“She should be hungry by now,” Sansa murmurs.

Laughter erupts at a nearby table. Iselinde lets go of the breast and turns her head, laughing reflexively along. 

It was Tormund, of course, entertaining the whole table. Drustan sits there now too, listening to the wildling king’s wild tales while his daughter admires Eddison’s attempt at juggling biscuits. Sam drops a comment with a grin and everyone laughs at that too. Drustan even claps him on the shoulder and shakes his finger at him in a friendly way that makes Sam grin even wider. He’s doing nothing wrong, old Sam, and yet it feels like a betrayal, like something dark and sickly slithering in Jon's stomach. Drustan looks as at home among them as he did at the head-table. He’s at home at Winterfell, at home among Jon’s friends, at home with Jon’s… Jon’s nothing. 

“Are you all right?” Sansa asks, voice so low he can barely hear her over the din. “You’ve been very quiet tonight.”

“Yeah.” Jon scrubs a hand over his beard. “Yeah, I was just thinking about… I think I should sleep in my own chamber tonight.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding, gazing down at their finally eating daughter.

“Yeah,” Jon says again, as if that would make anything better.

The awkwardness between them is a prickly thing intent on driving him away. But if he followed his impulse and replaced the water in his tankard with ale and joined his friends, he would leave her alone up here with no one to talk to but the wall. Not only would it be inconsiderate, but it would look bad too. People would wonder, whisper, fill in the blanks. So he sits there, nursing his water until Iselinde is full.

“I’ll take her for a bit.” Jon empties his tankard and holds out his hands. “Go to talk to your people.”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Only water.”

“She’ll need changing. You can give her to Kari--”

“I know. I’ll do it.”

She nods slowly, lingering by her chair after handing him their baby. “There’s music,” she says. "We often dance now. When there’s music.”

“Well, you love dancing.”

“Yes. I do.” She moves her weight from one foot to the other, licks her lips; Jon waits in silence for her to say whatever's on her mind. “Drustan might ask me to dance.”

“I’m sure he will.”

“Would that bother you?”

If she were to reject the King, people would wonder too. They would whisper and fill in the blanks. The best way to ensure they don’t is to give them nothing out of the ordinary.

“No,” he says and even manages to tip the corners of his mouth up, “it wouldn’t bother me at all.”

He doesn’t watch her leave.

Lamb’s head pops up from beneath the table and she lays it on his thigh and, even though the baby kicks her little legs happily and hits the wolf on the nose, Lamb stays calm and looks up at her adoringly. Scratching the wolf’s soft ear, Jon wonders for the thousandth time whether his daughter one day will see the night through the moon-yellow eyes of the wolf and feel the hot iron taste of a fresh kill between her fangs.

Lamb lets out a soft noise, takes his hand delicately between her teeth, and gives a tug before releasing him and scratching at the floor. Holding Iselinde firmly while leaning to the side, Jon peers under the table. Ghost is so big now, it almost looks as if the table rests on his back and yet Dickon has squeezed himself into the scant space between wolf and wood. He’s drooling into Ghost’s fur, his little fists curled around white tufts, his little back rising and falling with steady breaths. 

Ghost gives Jon a tired look.

“I’ll save you, boy,” Jon says, chuckling. By now, Drustan has moved on to another table where some of the more prominent northern families are seated with Robin Arryn and his company, and Jon joins Sam and the others. “Your son seems to believe my wolf is a featherbed.” He nods at the head-table. “He’s fast asleep.”

“I’ll get him.” Gilly squeezes Sam’s arm. “You two spend some time together. Keep an eye on the boys, will you.”

With Shireen on her hip, she scoops up her sleeping son and leaves the Great Hall. Even though she said nothing to Little Sam, he trails behind while Eddison stays and keeps charming Princess Mara, who’s an even better audience than the babes for she whoops and claps her little hands in delight when he walks on his hands or repeats a ribald joke he heard from one of the sailors and neither he nor Mara truly understands. They laugh heartily anyway--and the adults laugh even more (except the more prude-minded who exchange aghast looks).

“Ghost’s changed,” Sam says. “Last time I saw him, he was more wild than tame.”

“Yeah.” Jon bounces his knee, smiling down at Iselinde when she giggles. “He was even wilder before Iselinde was born. But since the pack moved into the godswood, they’re almost like dogs. Especially Lamb and Ghost. They’re often inside with us. I think he likes it. The domestic life.”

Sam grins at Jon. “He’s not the only one.”

“No,” Jon says, “he’s not.”

“Jon,” Sam says, drawing out the vowel. “About Bran.”

“Yes.” Brienne appears out of nowhere, her eyes already ale-glossy even though midnight is still hours away. “About Bran.”

Jon sighs and shakes his head at them but does so fondly and answers their questions as best as he can without breaking Bran’s trust. 

As they talk, more of the younger children leave the Great Hall for the night, and tables are moved to the side of the room to create a small space for dancing, scaring off the wolves who flee outside. Doing their duty as the two highest ranking people in Westeros, Sansa and Drustan lead the first dance and more couples quickly join them, scaring off Jon too. He takes his sweet time changing his daughter and yet they're _still_ dancing once he returns. Back in his seat, he forces himself to keep talking, to keep looking at Sam and Brienne as if they were the most fascinating people in the world, and pay absolutely no attention to the dance floor.

It’s why he doesn’t notice a comely young lady approaching until she stands at their table. There’s something familiar about her hazel eyes and auburn locks, and once she fires off a dazzling smile with charmingly crooked teeth, he remembers her. At Robb’s sixteenth nameday celebration, lords and ladies came from far and wide with their daughters in hopes of one of them catching the young lord's eye. Not yet fifteen, pretty as an autumn day, seemingly born in the saddle, and with that charming smile of hers, she did catch someone's eye instantly. Not Robb's, though--she was not his taste--but Jon's. She ignored the Bastard of Winterfell’s awkward attempts at conversation, however, and ended up snogging Theon in a linen closet while the adults got more and more drunk. He might’ve been a fish-reeking Greyjoy, but at least he was trueborn.

“I don’t know whether my lord remembers me…”

“Lady Lora, was it?”

Lady Lora takes it as an invitation to sit. “Let me express my deepest gratitude, my lord. Even if it’s somewhat belatedly. You saved us all from suffering under a Ta-- Under the Mad Queen’s tyranny. We can never thank you enough.”

“I did my duty, that’s all.”

She gives him another dazzling smile and keeps talking to him about the wars and his daughter and the North--for the first time in his life, Jon learns what it's like to be flirted with by a lady. Or at least he thinks he is being flirted with. Used to wildling women who know what they want and take it, he can’t be entirely certain. But it’s not necessary to flutter one’s lashes quite that often, is it? It’s not necessary to let one’s gaze linger at lips or laugh at anything even remotely funny. And when she licks her lips or brushes her hair over her shoulder, it’s just a touch too sensual, isn’t it? Aye, she’s flirting. Even though he holds his daughter in his arms. A daughter he shares with the Queen.

But then women around Winterfell always went a bit silly when Lord Stark carried Rickon around. Once, when Jon passed the laundresses gossiping by the wash tub, he heard them saying things that never should reach Ned’s (or Lady Catelyn’s) ears about what they wanted to do to him--or rather, what they wanted him to do to them. “He has one bastard, don’t he,” one of them said. “What’s one more? I’d give that man a whole brood of bastards if he only strayed from m’lady’s bed for once.” Then they cackled together and Jon sneaked off.

Maybe that’s what Lady Lora wants in this new North where bastards have become so accepted even she has changed her attitude. Or maybe she just wants to fuck him now that he's trueborn after all. Even though he’s someone else’s man--

_You’re not her man._

No, he’s not. And everyone knows it or Lady Lora would never have flirted with him--unless she is as bold as a wildling woman only more discreet about it. Not that Sansa notices either way. She’s dancing with Tormund now, whose enthusiasm alleviates the clumsiness in which he moves through steps he at least knows. Sansa must've taught him, then. Looks used to his wildling style and only laughs when Tormund bumps in to her or lifts her in the air when he shouldn't.

“Do you dance, my lord,” Lady Lora asks.

“I never learned. Never thought I’d get to dance. I was a bastard, remember?”

She has the good sense to blush. “I could teach you.”

“I’m here for my daughter,” Jon says, firmly. "That's all."

Lady Lora bows her head respectfully. “My lord.”

With a final smile, she leaves the table and Jon breathes a sigh of relief--only to suck it back in when he notices Sansa back in Drustan’s arms, her pretty dress flowing around her and apple blossom falling from her hair when she spins and twirls.

“It’s not that hard.” Sam’s voice in his ear. “Even I know how. I’ve seen you fight. You pick things up so quickly. I’m sure Sansa would teach--”

“I don’t dance,” Jon says.

“Maybe now is a good time to start?”

Jon shakes his head, following Sansa with his eyes. They’re different in public, Drustan and her. They call each other Your Grace and keep their distance. Jon might’ve never learned how, but he's seen enough dancing to know they don’t touch each other more than what’s necessary and proper. Tormund touched her more than Drustan does. And the smiles she gives her former lover are the same kind of smiles she gives Tormund or Sam or her cousin Robin. Hadn’t Jon known, he never would’ve guessed their history.

Unlike Lady Lora, Sansa would never flirt with a man who belonged to someone else, though. Not in public--and not in private, either. Jon knows her that well. What he doesn’t know is her desires. The affair went on even _after_ she rejected the proposal, Jon remembers, so had Drustan never married Cora, would Sansa have invited him to her bed tonight?

Jon isn’t hers and she isn’t Jon’s. They’ve exchanged no vows.

_Were you thinking of him or me?_

“She would dance with you, if you asked,” Sam says. “She danced with me earlier. And with Perceon and Robin Arryn.”

“I’ll be fine, Sam. I will. I’d just like to feel sorry for myself. Just for one night. Is that all right with you?”

Sam pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah. I’ll get us some more ale.”

“None for me. Ale makes me stupid.” His gaze wanders back to Sansa where she flutters around the small dance floor like a summer bird, her smile shining brighter than the chandeliers. “I forget to hide it.”

(And he’ll forget to sleep in his own chamber and stumble into hers by habit and _that_ would be a disaster.)

By gods, she’s beautiful. And when she smiles like that, when she shines like that, his heartache is easy to forget. He finds himself smiling too, holding up his daughter to show her how pretty Mama is when she dances and soaking up her joy as if it were his own. He doesn’t have to get drunk to dull the pain. Supping on the bittersweet drink of Sansa dancing with every man but him does a good enough job on its own.

Jon has never made her that happy. All he’s ever done is hurt her and betray her and disappoint her. Small wonder she can’t fall back in love with him. Small wonder she prefers the company of the people who’ve become her true family, Drustan, Meera, and Tormund, especially. Those who were there for her when Jon was not. All he does is remind her of her shattered hopes and shattered heart. Perhaps the best thing he can do for Sansa is letting her go...

“Maybe you _shouldn’t_ hide it,” Sam says, carefully. “What if she's hiding it too?"

"She's not."

"All right. If you have to mope all night, then do it properly. Come on. Give your daughter to Kari and have some ale with me.”

"Yeah," Jon says, rubbing his eye. "Maybe I should."

He's not used to this many people, this much noise. He's already growing tired despite the early hour. It must overwhelm Iselinde too, all this clamor, no matter how content she seems to be. She should sleep. And so once he’s handed her back to her mother for a feeding, Jon does accept a tankard of ale from Sam. But only one. He can't get drunk--but barely a song later he realizes he can't stay in here either _unless_ he gets drunk. After years alone in the wilderness followed by a rather calm life at Winterfell, where he's spent every feast with plenty of ale, wine or sour goat’s milk forming a cozy barrier between him and the world, one ale is not enough to protect his senses. Everyone’s a bit too loud. Every color a bit too strong. Every smell a bit too potent. When Sam talks to him, Jon finds he has to close his eyes for if he keeps them open he can’t hear a bleeding thing Sam’s saying. 

“Jon.” Sam’s hand on his arm. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not.” He puts the tankard on the table and stands. “I just need some air.”

He’s halfway across the floor when Meera whirls into the Great Hall with hair wilder than a thornbush and cheeks redder than wine. Sansa has already left with Iselinde, but Drustan catches sight of Meera instantly. A bright smile lights up his face and he rushes over to her as if he’s been waiting impatiently for the unpredictable guest who never arrives on time. They don’t even bother greeting one another. He dives straight in and starts whispering in her ear. Even at this distance, Jon sees her befuddled squint smoothing out until she’s gaping. Her eyes flit around the room until they find him. Jon. When she notices he’s looking straight at her, her eyes keep going until they land on someone lord or other she now pretends to inspect as if Jon’s a bleeding idiot who can’t tell they’re whispering about him.

Jaw clenched, Jon weaves his way through the mass of guests and flees to the deeper part of the godswood for silence, solace, and the soft feel of direwolf fur under his fingers.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Anyone, no matter their beliefs, can find peace in the quiet beauty of the godswood. Even a southern man to whom the heart-tree is just a weirwood and the old gods are nothing but myth. Whenever Drustan visits Winterfell, he always takes at least one stroll through that quiet once the stars have come out. In the heart-tree glade, where the surrounding trees ward off the noise of the courtyard and the walls ward off the wildlife that prowls the fields at night, he can safely admire constellations not visible in the south. Like the Bear Paw and Sindra’s Spire and Wulfe the Hunter.

Tonight, though, Drustan is the hunter and his prey is somewhere deep in these woods. Tonight, Drustan is the hunter and the prey too. As he follows Jon’s tracks by torchlight, his instincts, the way his skin prickles, tell him he’s followed in return. He knows about the wolves, of course, met Lamb yesterday--and what a fine animal she was, as happy and sweet as any dog--and saw her and her sire under the table tonight. If you’re a friend of the Starks, you’re a friend of their direwolves--and yet he can’t help but feel the fool for wandering in here alone with nothing but a torch to protect him.

“I come as a friend,” he tells the dark. “You can show yourself.” The godswood gives nothing but silence in return. Not even the wind whispers in the tree crowns. “I’d like to speak to your master.”

Drustan counts three breaths before he catches movement in his peripheral. Black turns to gray turns to gold as the white direwolf moves into the buttery pool of light cast by the torch. His tattered ear and battle-scars make him look all the more fierce, as if he needed that considering the size of him. That wolf survived wave after wave of wights. If he wanted to, he could kill Drustan before he could blink.

After a calming, steadying breath, Drustan holds out his hand for the wolf to sniff. Ghost looks up at him with eyes redder than blood and, ignoring the hand, turns around and pads away. 

“Am I to follow?”

Ghost looks back at him before continuing his walk; Drustan takes it as a yes and follows the wolf deeper still into the dark and quiet woods.

Beneath a grand old tree, surrounded by a wolf pack and illuminated by a lantern he’s hung from a branch, sits Jon Snow with his back against the trunk and his hands stroking the amber fur of the wolf resting its head in his lap. Not Lamb. The color of her eyes is too rich and dark. Lamb's sister, then.

“Your Grace.” Graceful as a shadowcat, Jon gets to his feet. The wolves regroup around him, bodies as taut as their master’s, ears perked, and eyes focused on the intruder. “Gotten lost?”

“Not at all, my lord. I always visit the godswood when I’m at Winterfell. Such a peaceful place. Well”--a quick smile; a quick glance at the wolves--”usually."

“Do my wolves frighten you?”

“Is that a worry or a wish?”

Jon exhales, his tense shoulders dropping, and the wolves around him relax. “They live here now. It’s their territory and wolves protect their territory. You were unexpected. That’s all.” Jon forms his mouth into something resembling a smile. “I’ve been wanting a word, Your Grace. If you have the time.”

“Ah, yes, we’ve measured our cocks like silly little boys. It’s time we talk like men, no?”

Jon stares at him for a breath. “I’ve been wanting a word about _Dragonstone_.”

Drustan leans his head back. Well, that was unexpected. 

“You call me ‘my lord’ but I’m only one if I embrace the name given to me at birth. I don’t want to be a lord that badly. I’m not Aegon Targaryen. I’m Jon Snow. Not a lord. Never was, never will be. I have other plans.” As he explains said plans in broad strokes, the wolves lose interest in the humans and pile up together beneath the tree to rest. It must be true, then, what they say. That the Stark direwolves can feel their masters’ emotions. That they’re bonded. “I really think this could work. But I’d do it either way. It’s the only thing I want to do. But I do think it could work.”

Drustan hums. “I’m intrigued. What does Sansa say?”

“I haven’t told her yet. When I present this to her, I want everything to be sorted. Funding included. And I don’t have any money. I’m told Dragonstone is inhabited now. And yet you’ve not stripped me of my title and given the island to someone else. Someone who’d actually live there. My only guess is that it wouldn’t be politically wise. I’m the Queen in the North’s cousin. I’m the future Queen in the North’s father. You couldn’t do anything even if you wanted to. But you can now.”

“Ah.” Drustan smiles sweetly. “For a sum.”

“Aye, for a sum.”

“It’s only fair. And you’re right. It’s become quite sought after, your Dragonstone. I won’t have trouble finding a new family for it. Yes, I’ll take it off your hands--and I will help you acquire contacts. In Westeros _and_ Essos.”

Jon looks up at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re being more helpful than you need to be.”

“Would you prefer for me to be unhelpful?”

Jon's lopsided smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You don’t like me very much. Makes a man wonder.”

Drustan tilts his head to the side, humming. “It’s true that I don’t have the highest opinion of you. Why would I? You broke the heart and trust of a very special woman. Someone who’d already been betrayed and heart-broken enough for several lifetimes. If you’d sat, night after night, offering your shoulder for her to cry on, you wouldn’t think too highly of the man who hurt her either.”

“That’s not all you were doing, though, was it.”

At the sound of Jon’s low, almost growl-like voice, Ghost leaves the wolf pile, eyes locked on Drustan.

“I never did anything she did not want me to do,” Drustan says, glancing at Ghost. “I never hurt her. I never betrayed her. I never used her. If there was anyone being used, it was me--and I was happy to be used. I was happy to be there when she needed someone. I don’t see why that would bother you so much. From what I know of Jon Snow, he is in no position to judge someone for finding intimacy out of marriage.”

Jon clenches his jaw, clenches his fists. Ghost moves closer until he’s pressing into Jon’s side. Jon stretches out his fingers, relaxing his hand, and rests it on Ghost’s head.

“Sometimes,” Drustan says, “we aim our anger at the wrong person because it's easier. It’s yourself you’re angry with, is it not? If you hadn’t hidden away in… wherever you were, she never would’ve needed me. You're angry with me because I filled a space in her life you created willingly. You hate me because your actions drove her into my arms when it’s in your own arms you wanted her. It's in _your_ arms you've always wanted her."

Jon draws himself up with a deep inhale, the red-hot anger simmering in his eyes cooling into an inscrutable black that tells Drustan more than Jon’s anger ever would. Wolves protect their territory, yes. Some men feel possessive of the women who give them sons and daughters. No feelings need to be involved for that. Drustan knows many men who ensure their mistresses won't give birth to someone else's bastard. But if Jon had no feelings for Sansa, why would he need to slip on a trusted old mask?

Bolstered, Drustan moves closer. “You’re angry with me because it’s a relief to snap your jaws at me for a while instead of chewing at your own arm for hurting the woman you love. That’s what you’ve been doing, no? Projecting your anger at an easier target.” Drustan holds up his hands and backs away a step. “We’re both passionate men. I understand. I won’t take it personally. Now, dismiss your wolves, Jon Snow, so we can finally talk like men.”

Jon lifts his chin. “About what?”

“Why, about Sansa, of course. How to make her happy. It’s time you tell her how you feel, no?”

Jon’s chest heaves with breaths he takes through his flared nose, more a bull than a wolf now.

“Relax, friend,” Drustan says, voice soft. “I won’t tell. She deserves to hear it from you. She believes you don’t love her, you know. She seems quite convinced. But she’s wrong. Isn’t she?”

Jon’s mouth stays firmly shut.

“I believe she loves you too.”

Jon’s mouth falls open, then, and any lingering doubts on Drustan’s end vanish. No matter how quickly Jon recovers and schools his reaction with that sullen set of his jaw, it wasn’t quick enough to hide the flicker of hope lighting up his eyes ever so briefly.

“You’re wrong,” Jon says. “She loved me once, aye, but not anymore.”

“So she claims. Well. So she _lies_. To me, to you, to Meera, maybe even to herself. But I’ve had the privilege of observing you for two days. She doesn’t look at you often. She doesn’t speak to you often. She doesn’t smile at you often. It’s all a little too deliberate, wouldn’t you say? In my experience, when a woman behaves that way it’s either because she doesn’t want to encourage affection--or because she’s desperate to hide her own.”

Jon lets out a joyless laugh. “What kind of game are you playing? _Your Grace_. Are you hoping you can make a fool out of me? If there’s anyone here who loves, it’s you. Married man. Still in love with a woman who rejected him. Maybe I'm not the one projecting."

“Tell me, Jon Snow, if you loved someone but it was too late for you and her--if you truly loved her--wouldn’t you want her to be happy? Even if it meant she wouldn’t be happy with you.”

Jon’s eyes drift closed with a deep sigh and it’s answer enough.

“You have nothing to fear from me. Even if she, by some whim of the gods, loved me again or even merely wanted me again, I’m a married man now. I know what they say about us Dornishmen, but it’s not all true. My wife is the air in my lungs, the blood pumping through my heart. I love _no one_ the way I love her. What Sansa and I had was over long before it had a chance to truly blossom. But it’s not too late for you.”

Jon shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A few years ago, Samwell Tarly married his Gilly the southern way. I attended the feast. A beautiful evening. Good food, good wine, good music. He’d written a song about their history and sang it to her with his sister playing the harp. The way Gilly looked at him… It was magical. Not a dry eye in the whole castle.”

Jon quirks a brow. “Are you suggesting I write a song?”

“No-no," Drustan says, laughing. "You’re not like your friend. Two days, I’ve been here, and it’s clear you’re a man of action, no? So take action. _Show_ her you love her. Court her the way she always wanted to be courted.”

“If you knew Sansa as well as you pride yourself in, you’d know she doesn’t believe in that anymore. She told me herself. She doesn’t want it.”

Drustan tuts at the silly man. “When I was a boy, my favorite story was _The Winged Horse of Starfall_. I was obsessed. All I wanted in the world was a winged horse of my own. My mother and father claimed they didn’t exist, but my cousins told me to choose a horse from the stables and rub a magical oil over his back every night for a moon. If I did it right, wings would sprout. So I did. Night after night. Four nights passed before Elia found out. She pulled me onto her lap and told me the truth: winged horses only exist in stories. I didn’t want to believe her at first--I was a stubborn child--but with time... I don’t believe in winged horses anymore, but if you told me you had one standing in the courtyard, I’d be the first one there.”

Jon watches him quietly for a moment, unspoken words working behind closed lips before he spits them out. “And what if you ran out there only to find a regular old horse with feathers glued to her back.”

“Well,” Drustan says with a shrug, “at least I would know.” He moves as close as he dares, still one eye on the direwolf. “She’s not yours now. So what do you have to lose? She won’t throw you out; she won’t think ill of you. She just... won’t love you back. Isn’t that what you believe you have now? So, if I'm wrong, what would truly change? If I'm right, though..." He pauses to let Jon reply, but he is a man of few words and remains silent. "Woo her, Jon Snow. Make her remember why she wanted all those things when she was a little girl. Make her believe in love again.”

Deep in thought, Jon sifts his fingers through the thick fur of the now calm wolf while staring out into the dark with a pensive twist of his mouth. Drustan needs no more words from him, though. He's gotten the answer to his question and said all he wanted to say.

When he steps through the godswood gates and returns to the courtyard, it’s like stepping through worlds. Behind him is the silent, otherworldly darkness where the lines between man and myth blur; before him is the real world with its noise and light and life. Yes, he finds the godswood peaceful, usually, but tonight walking into the roar of a proper northern feast is a breath of fresh air to his lung. A breath of rather smelly fresh air, granted, but air all the same. Snatching a tankard from the tray of a serving maid passing by, he scans the room for familiar faces. Gilly has returned, sans children, and dances with her husband. Robin Arryn is entertaining one of the Karstark girls. Yohn Royce and Brienne look equally drunk as they undoubtedly talk about the war. Tormund sits with his wife and kisses her hands and feeds her lemon cakes and pats her round belly. Sansa, however, is not there--and neither is Meera.

She didn't want to scheme, Meera told him. She would only talk to Sansa as a friend, she said. But soon the distant cries of a baby draws him to the window and, out there in the courtyard, he sees Meera leading a baby-carrying Sansa into the godswood after all.

Smiling to himself, Drustan finishes his ale and throws himself back into the feast. They're two stubborn mules, Sansa and her Jon; he expects no great strides from them. But perhaps, if the gods are good, they’ll take a tentative step forward tonight.


	25. A Heart-Tree Vow

When Meera left Greywater, a storm brewed at the horizon. Rain-heavy clouds the color of mud followed them through the bog and up the Kingsroad. They’d barely passed Moat Cailin when the wind picked up and the first few drops dotted the ground. An hour later, the wind and rain whipped her, Wylis, and Froska so hard they had to turn back to find shelter.

“We were stuck for a day. And when we all got out again, whole trees had gotten turned over. Some had even fallen over the Kingsroad. We’re lucky we had horses and not a carriage or I wouldn’t have been here until tomorrow. And if we'd kept going...? The lightning had struck an old oak, only a few feet from where we turned back. Half of it still stood, but the other half lay on the road. Would've killed us. Not that I know exactly _when_ it happened, but still."

Sansa hums, too busy fussing over her daughter to listen. After tucking Wylis into bed and leaving him with Froska, Meera found an unusually disheveled Sansa in her chamber with a red-faced, cranky baby in her arms and a worried wolf by her feet.

“I’m a bad mother,” Sansa says, rocking her baby. An apple blossom falls from a frizzy lock and lands on her arm. “I should’ve put her to bed hours ago. She won’t accept the breast. I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you usually do? When she won’t sleep.”

“Jon takes her for a walk.”

“Then why don’t we take her for a walk?”

Even though Meera only stated the obvious, Sansa looks up at Meera as if she handed her the cure to greyscale. Then a tired chuckle escapes her, and she shakes her head at herself. "Yes. Let's go for a walk."

The moment they’re out in the hallway, Queen Sansa returns. She stays when they stride through Winterfell, she stays when they’re led out to the courtyard by Lamb, she stays when Meera nicks a torch from the wall to light their way as they head into the godswood. And she vanishes the moment they’re safely hidden from view by a cluster of trees, the feasts a muted buzz far behind them. By now, the brisk walk and cool evening air has calmed the baby enough to accept the breast. Sansa looks the way Meera felt when the Wall finally appeared before her and Bran after they lost everyone and she had to drag him across endless snowy fields despite her screaming muscles and aching heart and the bone-tired voice within her telling her how easy it would be just lie down in the soft snow and rest.

“What’s wrong?” Meera asks, quietly. “I’ve not seen you this frayed in a good while.”

“It’s been a very stressful few days with all the preparations and the guests arriving, that’s all.” Sansa holds her head high for three steps before a sigh leaves her like a heavy stone dropped to the ground, and she stops. “Jon caught me in a delicate position.”

“What? Did he catch you on the chamber pot?”

“No.” Absentmindedly scratching Lamb's ear, Sansa takes a good look around the quiet woods. “After the birth I wasn’t thinking like that at all, but lately… He barely wears _anything_ to bed and every morning we stretch together and he’s always around and he smells really good and it’s driving me half mad. Then, today, I went fully mad.” A breathy laugh pops from her lips. “When I was a girl, I used to daydream about two handsome men fighting over me. I found it wildly romantic. Someone wanting me so badly he’d fight for it. What girl wouldn't want that? And I suppose I'm still that girl deep down, because today Jon and Drustan sparred and I know, I _know._ They weren’t really fighting over me. They were just being stupid boys. But it was so easy to pretend. And it left me very frustrated and I knew it would be quick and Jon was busy. I had time. Or so I believed.”

 _"Oh_."

“Yes. _Oh_. It was _humiliating_. And he can’t even do me the courtesy of pretending nothing happened. He’s barely said a word all night. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t care that I danced with Drustan. Didn’t ask me to dance either, which he really ought to have done had he any manners at all. But, no, he spent half the night talking to someone else! He--” Sansa takes a shuddering breath and eases it out between tense lips before continuing with a hushed voice, her eyes locked on the ground. “He doesn’t want to sleep in our bed tonight. I think he knows. Or suspects, at least. And now he doesn’t want to encourage me.”

“Knows what?” Meera asks, softly.

Sansa’s eyes flit up to hers. Despite being two heads taller, she looks so small and unprotected, like a leveret out in the open, that Meera wants to scoop her up and hug her close.

“I’ve been so careful,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper. “I really have. Because of _her_. She knew. She caught me. It was the night of the feast. After the battle. I wasn’t used to drinking and I forgot to hide it and she caught me looking at him.” Sansa rolls her eyes at herself. “ _Gazing_. And this was _before_ \--”

Sansa stills, then, even the hand petting Lamb stills. No wind winds through the godswood tonight. No critters play or search for food, must be cowering somewhere at the scent of the direwolf. Only the little hums coming from Iselinde when she eats fill the silence. Then those stop too. Sansa tucks herself back in her dress and pulls the wrap more firmly over her sleeping daughter’s head until only the curve of her cheek and the slope of her nose are visible.

“I thought she would tell him." Sansa's wet lashes glitter in the light of the torch. “Still don’t know why she didn’t. Sometimes I think Tormund might’ve noticed too. Then, at Squirrel’s feast, I was careless again. Tormund definitely noticed that time. So I’ve been careful this time. Really careful. If Sam notices…” Eyes wide, she shakes her head. “Not that it matters now. Not after Jon walked in on me. He must know now, musn’t he?”

“That you love him?”

Sansa’s bottom lip quivers. A tear falls from her lashes; she wipes it away. “I don’t think I ever stopped,” she whispers. "Not really."

“I don’t think you did either.”

Mouth scrunched, Sansa nods and dabs the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. “I think he’d marry me if I asked him. Because it’s the right thing to do. The honorable thing. Because he's still a bit ashamed, even though I've legitimized her. Brienne said… She said it can be a good marriage. That she’s happy in hers, even though she doesn’t love her husband the way he loves her, but I don’t think it would be. Do you?”

Meera loved Bran once--she loved him with all her heart--and what did that earn her? The loss of almost everyone she's ever loved and a mere thank you devoid of any warmth or actual gratitude.

“No, I don’t,” she says. “I don’t think it would be good at all.”

“Maybe Perceon likes it, but I wouldn't. If I can’t have it all--love and passion and all of it--I don’t want it. There’s no middle ground. Not for me. I can’t love for two. I just can’t. I’ll give and give until there’s nothing left of me. I can’t do it!”

“Then you shouldn’t.”

“No, I shouldn’t. And I won’t.” With a firm nod, she starts walking again and Meera and Lamb follow. “I’m glad he left. If we had been intimate, I would’ve regretted it. I think he knew…”

Sansa’s steps slow to a stop and her eyes drift to Meera. In the scant light of the torch, Meera can see a flicker of hope in them. A flicker of hope snuffed out as quickly and easily as a candle in a draft.

“What?” Meera asks. “What is it? You think he left because he knew?”

“Yes,” Sansa says, walking again. “If it were only pleasure, if he knew I saw it that way too, I think he would’ve joined me. He has needs too. And I know he desires me. Me and my stupid red hair.”

“What?”

“I’ve learned he has a thing for redheads.” Sansa purses her lips. “He spent at least half an hour talking to Lady Lora tonight. Guess what color hair.”

“Auburn, isn’t it.”

Sansa confirms with a nod. “My mother had red hair,” she says, quietly.

“You don’t think…" Meera shudders, the flame of the torch flickering from the movement. Even after all these years she can still smell Karl's rotten breath wafting over her face, hear his raspy voice whispering into her ear, feel his coarse fingers brushing her skin. Another shudder travels through her. "I thought he didn't like your mother."

“He confessed once that he’s always wanted a lady wife like her. And I do look the part. The next best thing. I always thought it was Ygritte he... But maybe it's--" She stills her lips with her fingers pressing against her mouth, eyes flitting around the dark as she thinks. "No," she says, slowly, removing her fingers. "No. He likes red hair, that's all. I like dark hair--I always have--It doesn't have to mean anything. But even so. I want to be loved and wanted for _me_ , not because I gave him a daughter or because I have the right color hair. Would you like to be desired for your hair?”

“No, can’t say I would,” Meera says, bitterly.

At first Sansa’s brow knits at her tone, but then it smooths out. “Oh, Meera. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“It’s all right. I try to forget that man as best as I can too. And it’s not the same thing. Karl was a monster. Jon is not a monster.”

“No, he’s not. Really not. He’s such a good father. Even better than I thought he would be. He’s _wonderful_..." Sansa loops her arm with Meera's, choosing a narrow path when the wider path they've been following forks into two. "Do you want to know something ridiculous? Part of me was hoping Drustan’s arrival would change something between Jon and me. That he would realize he felt something for me after all. And for a moment he did seem... But I suppose not.” Sansa sighs deeply. “He was just trying to prove something. He’s always had a chip on his shoulder and men like Drustan get under his skin. They always have.”

Meera looks up at her, at the sad curve of her mouth and the tears in her lashes glittering anew as if she’s held those tears back all day and is running out of composure. Drustan did tell her that Jon was marking his territory, but he couldn’t confidently say whether it was a need born from worry or jealousy or possessiveness or something else entirely.

“How certain are you?" Meera asks. "That he doesn’t love you back.”

“Certain enough. He’s had plenty of opportunity to do something or say something but he doesn’t.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions. Maybe you should ask him. Wouldn’t it be better to know? Maybe his reaction would surprise you."

Sansa shakes her head, another tear falling she brushes away. “When I came to him, when I asked him to give me an heir, I had nothing to lose. But now… I know how it must look.” She wipes away another tear and holds out her wet fingers with a tired laugh. “I’m just exhausted, that’s all. Everyone’s so interested in me and Jon and our relationship and I’ve had to control everything I do and say for days. I know you all mean well--I do--but you’re picking at a scab and tearing open a wound that’s _healing_. I’m happy, Meera. My life with Jon is good. It’s really good. And I don’t want to risk losing what we have just because my heart tells me I should be hopeful. I did that when I was a little girl. I saw what I wanted to see and I suffered for it. And with Jon… I can’t trust myself around him. He makes me foolish. I need to listen to my head more than ever.”

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“I am. He doesn’t love me, Meera. Not the way I love him. And if he hasn’t fallen in love with me by now, he never will. And I don’t need him to. If I can live the rest of my life like this, I’ll consider myself very lucky.”

“You might need to talk to Drustan. If you’re scared of Sam meddling...”

Sansa stops, cheeks pale. “Has he said something?”

“He wanted to scheme with me, but I refused. Everything would be so much better if people could speak plainly instead of playing ridiculous games."

"You sound like Jon," Sansa says, and they continue down the narrow path, Lamb trotting happily where the torchlight fades into the deep shadows before them. "I'll talk to Drustan. If he and Jon are ever going to have a chance of getting along, the less he interferes the easier it'll be. I can’t exactly shut the King of the Six Kingdoms out of my life. Especially not if Drustan has his way and Iselinde marries one of his sons one day.”

Meera grins. “Sounds as if I need a word with Drustan too. If I have another son, _he’s_ marrying Iselinde.”

Sansa smiles too, crinkles forming at the corners of her eyes. "You’re having more?”

“One day. I’d like three, I think.”

“Three's a good number. All with Trask?”

“I’m not sure. I’d be tied to him, in a way. The thought makes me feel like a rabbit in a snare. I enjoy being a mother--it’s right and good and I can’t wait to teach my little frog everything about the bog--but being a wife? No. I…” She’s back there again, in Bran’s chamber, speaking to the creature inhabiting Bran’s body. Staring into those blank eyes who gave her nothing when her heart broke. Giving and giving until there’s nothing left of you, Sansa said, and Meera knows that feeling well. She knows how it feels to be a wrung-out dish rag hung up to dry, to be forgotten, until someone needs it again. “We’re better off without husbands."

“We are.” Sansa gives another smile, but barely a step later that smile turns wistful, and her hand curves protectively around her daughter’s back. “I want Iselinde to be able to follow her heart. But whomever she chooses, I’ll make sure he’s a good man before I agree to the match. I won’t do what my father did.”

“I know. You'll do the right thing.” 

“Is it wrong of me to hope she chooses Maron or Mors? Politically, it really is the best choice. And I know Drustan will raise them right. I know they’d treat her well.”

“No, it’s not.” Meera squeezes her arm. “And if they grow up to be anything like their father, and Iselinde grows up to be anything like you, I’m sure she’ll lose her heart to one of them. Even if I won't like it.”

Sansa laughs at that. "Who wouldn’t choose a beautiful Dornish prince? And she actually _could_ choose one of them. The North’s independence wouldn’t be threatened. It would be--”

The rest of that sentence vanishes in a sharp intake of breath.

Before them, beneath an old linden tree, in the light of a lantern hanging from a branch, sits Jon in a pile of direwolves. His hair falls over his face, casting one eye in shadow. The other eye glints dark and fathomless as he stares up at them as if the godswood were his domain and they a pair of strangers intruding on a night meant for creatures of myth and legend.

Unperturbed, Lamb lopes over to him and flops down on her back, begging for affection. Jon lets his gaze linger on them for a beat before turning to Lamb and rubbing her belly. 

Meera glances up at Sansa. She’s as pale, almost waxen in this light, and she looks at Jon as if nothing else in the world exists but him. She doesn’t even react when Meera slips her arm from Sansa’s grip and leaves the same way they came.

She meant it when she said she'd be better off without a husband. It was never a dream of hers, anyway, finding romantic love. Remaining unwed isn't a compromise but a privilege. But Sansa... Oh, for Sansa it's a different matter entirely.

* * *

* * *

As Jon takes his time getting to his feet, petting each wolf before sending them on their way, Sansa touches her cheeks discreetly to make sure they’re dry. She didn’t cry _that_ much, did she? Just shed a tear or two (or ten). What did she say? _When_ did she say it?

How much did he hear?

He takes his time brushing pine needles and moss off his new garments too. He looks good in them, all sharp silhouettes and soft, black fabrics embroidered with silver thread so fine she only sees it when it reflects light. It’s so unlike anything she’s ever seen him wear and yet so him. This Jon is not the sullen boy of their childhood, who preferred anyone’s company but hers. He's not the man wearing the shadows of Robb and their father on his shoulders like a cloak, who she had to share with friends and enemies alike. He's not even the wildling appearing in the courtyard one day, who wouldn’t let her in.

This Jon is new. This Jon is _hers_.

Only he’s not, is he? Just because he’s closer to the man she once dreamed him to be, it doesn’t make him hers.

He tosses his hair back as he walks over to her. It’s getting long again, brushing his shoulders, framing a handsome face, framing eyes that seem to see straight into the heart of her--and her heart feels like a moth trapped in the glass dome of a lantern. Hot and fluttering and desperate.

"Already making plans for our daughter's future, I hear," he says, chin jutting out.

"We were just joking."

He nods, the corners of his mouth down-turned. “You wish you could’ve chosen him, don't you."

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You still love him.”

“Not in that way.”

“Feelings like that just don’t go away, Sansa.”

“Sometimes they do.”

Jon breathes out through his nose as he averts his face, his lips twitching into the briefest of smiles. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t believe her, then. Sansa sighs before dipping her chin and softening her voice. “It was never that deep in the first place. What I felt for him.”

“That night,” Jon says, hoarsely, “when we started this whole mess, we promised one another something. At least I think we did…”

“We did.”

“But what if you find someone.” He looks back at her. “If not him, then someone else. What if you were to find love and happiness, who am I to stand in your way?”

“I _am_ happy. I’m happy just like this.”

“You want more than this, though. You need more.”

Blushing, she covers Iselinde’s ear even though the baby finally sleeps and sleeps well. “Yes, I do have needs, Jon. But it doesn’t mean I have to find a lover or a husband to satisfy them. I can do it myself.”

“But what about love? You always wanted love.”

“Love is for songs. Not real life. You know I don’t believe in it anymore. I’m done with all that.”

His gaze is so full of empathy, so full of pity, she tries sheathing herself in iron. But while armor protects her from blows, it never did much to protect her from softness. Softness knows how to caress and soothe until everything hard falls away and leaves her bare.

“I’m not going to hold you to that promise, Sansa,” he says in a voice all too tender, forcing her to drop her gaze lest she cries. “It’s not right. I’ll build myself a cabin by the mere. I know just the place. I’ll be close, close enough I can see her every day. But…” He takes a small step closer to her; she keeps her eyes on his feet. “I need you to promise me something else. I need you to promise me I’ll always be her father. Not whomever you end up marrying. _Me_.”

“You want to…” The rest of the words lodge themselves in her throat and her nose prickles and her eyes sting with tears when she _must_ be hard. She must be strong and cool, like winter wind and rushing rivers. She must remember that this is an arrangement. So she takes a calming breath and puts on her Queen's face the way her mother once shifted so easily from Cat to Lady Stark with a proud tilt of her chin. “I don’t want to stand in your way either. When I came to you, you were hurting. Much more than I realized. But it’s different now. You’ve healed. Perhaps a future that seemed impossible to you then doesn’t seem that impossible now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you.” She licks her lips. “With Lora Condon. She’s pretty. She’s the head of her House. It’s not far from here, either. Five hours? You could still see Iselinde as often as you like.”

“You think I want--” Jon huffs out a breath. “She wouldn’t even look at me when she thought I was a bastard. You think I want her now?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I don’t like Lady Lora. Believe me. But even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I meant what I said that night.”

“So did I. I don’t think either of us would’ve agreed to this arrangement had we not. I wouldn’t have, at least. Would you have agreed?”

Jon shakes his head.

Sansa releases a breath and when she fills her lungs with air again, it feels as if she hasn’t breathed properly for hours. So she takes another and another and another, her Queen's face slipping more and more each time. Jon watches her quietly, those dark eyes of his seeing far too much. This is an arrangement an arrangement an _arrangement_. A poorly drawn one, at that, when she knows better.

She forces her breathing to calm, forces some levity into her voice, forces the corners of her mouth to tip up just enough for a friendly expression. “Did you notice what tree you’re under?” When Jon looks at her as if she asked him to stand on his head, she nods at the furrowed old trunk behind him. “Look at it.”

With a deep, demonstrative sigh, Jon turns around and backs away a couple of steps to get a good look. “Huh.” Gingerly, he moves close again and reaches up, tracing the face someone once carved for her in the bark. “It’s your heart-tree.”

“It was you. Wasn’t it? Who did it.”

“It had been raining,” he says, letting his hand drop to rest in the cradle. “For two weeks, I think. Mordane wouldn’t let you outside. Arya was climbing at the walls. Stomped her feet and said it was so unfair. She wanted to play with the boys, but she was stuck inside with you and Jeyne and Beth. You never wanted to do the things she wanted to do, so she took it out on you. And she was _mean_.” He laughs at that, a warm breathy laugh that brings a smile to Sansa’s face he doesn’t see. “She could be such a little shit sometimes.”

“Not to you.”

“No. Not to me.” His head bows. “Gods, I miss her.”

“I miss her too.” Sansa wraps her arms around her sleeping baby and noses at the wool hat covering her small, warm head. “I wish I’d played with her more. Even climbing trees and getting dirty. All I remember now is how much we fought. I should’ve made more of an effort.”

“You were a child.” Jon runs the palm of his hand over the bark before turning around to face her. “Your mother and father should’ve mediated more between you two, but they let you handle it on your own. Sometimes your mother just locked you in a room until you were friends again and that doesn’t work. Not really. You need help. Especially children. And Father… I’m not sure he noticed at all.”

_We’ll do it differently._

The words are there, resting on her tongue, eager to spill from her lips. But they’re not having more children between whom they can mediate. Despite the innate need to surround her daughter with brothers and sisters and keep them all together instead of letting the wind scatter them all over the world until no two Starks exist in the same place at the same time, Sansa doubts she’ll ever be able to be intimate with Jon again.

It would hurt too much. Even worse than before now that he knows how her heart once beat for him (now that he suspects it beats for him still).

They won't do it differently and she swallows those words down.

“I felt bad for you,” Jon says. “Arya was a bit too mean and no one seemed to care. So, yeah, I carved the face. Was it wrong of me?”

Sansa shakes her head and grips the edge of the linden tree cradle. “When you were in the Iron Mountains, I used to sit right here and read your letters aloud. I’d hold one hand on my stomach and she’d kick and kick, as if she knew it was her father’s words.”

Jon's eyes widen before dropping to their sleeping daughter. "She did?" he whispers, caressing her cheek with a curled finger. "My clever girl."

“You never noticed what type of tree it is, did you?”

Brow knitted, Jon looks up at the trunk, at the crown, at the heart-shaped leaves. He plucks one from the branch holding the lantern and examines it in the light. Then he lays it in the palm of his hand, touching it gently with one forefinger as a smile spreads slowly on his face. 

“Feels meant to be, doesn’t it?” Sansa murmurs. “As if we were always supposed to be a family.”

At her words, his head snaps up, the leaf fluttering from his palm when his hands fall to his side. But there’s nothing soft about that gaze now. No, he’s searching, probing, trying to get his suspicions confirmed, suspicions that drove him from their chamber, drove a wedge between them that has chafed at her all night. And then it’s easy to be hard. It’s easy to be the Queen and talk to him as if he were an Essosi magister with whom the North is looking to trade. It’s easy to be perfectly personable without ever lowering her mask to show the sensitive woman it hides.

“I used to think that, had you grown up a trueborn son, Father would’ve arranged a match between us, and that fate or the whim of the gods stole that future from us. I don’t know how time or fate works, but maybe we _were_ meant to be. Not as husband and wife but as the last two Starks ensuring the survival of our House. Isn’t that what we’ve always done? Ever since we met again. Fought for our House, for our family. Because you and I have always been creatures of duty."

“Aye,” he says, “suppose we have.”

“And this tree,” she says, touching the carved face, “it means something to us. It’s _our_ heart-tree, yours and mine and Iselinde’s. We will never exchange vows before a real heart-tree, you and I, but on _our_ heart-tree, I swear that I will honor the promise I made that night. I will give myself to no one else. I am committed to our family. From this day until the end of my days.”

She kept her tone matter-of-factly, let her words flow as briskly as a brook, and yet Jon’s probing look returns when he mirrors her gesture and echoes her words. But although she can't keep her heart from racing, it’s easy now to look at him as if he were any other man rather than the only man she’s ever truly loved and ever truly will.

These might be their vows, but this is not their wedding night.

She keeps her cool even as he moves closer and closer, even as he lifts his hand from the face of the heart-tree and moves it to the face of his not-bride, even as the touch of his ever-warm fingers ignites her skin and wakes a hunger in her that takes all the strength she has left to temper. If he kisses her now, she’ll have none left to stop him. She’ll have none left to hide how she’s yearned for the feel of his lips against hers this whole time.

 _Kiss me_ , that hunger inside her whispers. _Kiss me properly and take my hand and lead me back to our castle. Show the world I belong to you. Show me you’re mine._

Then Jon angles her head down and seals their vows with a brotherly kiss to her forehead like so many times before. Relief mixes with disappointment and douses her in the strange concoction they made, slaking the hunger until not even embers remain. Bitter ashes coat the place it left behind, but she’s used to that. Calm and collected, she walks back to the castle with her not-husband by her side. 

He still glances at her. Still reads her. Still _suspects_. All the way to their chamber. He doesn’t say a word, though. Just keeps shooting her those looks as they prepare for bed. Soon he's in his smallclothes and she's in a nightgown, the flowers decorating her hair now lying in a half-wilted, half-bruised heap on her vanity.

When they lie down, the bed creaks worse than the wind tearing at an old tree. Iselinde sleeps on, her round cheeks flushed pink and her little mouth lightly parted. It’s only when Jon lays his finger in her hand and watches her tiny fingers close around it before shutting his eyes with a soft exhale and burying his nose in his daughter's downy hair that Sansa realizes why he’s kept looking at her--and she’s so relieved she could laugh.

This is what he does. Instead of asking for what he wants outright, instead of telling her he still wants to sleep in their bed despite what he said earlier today, he stays quiet and still and follows their routines in hopes of her accepting his seamless presence. And she does. Just like she did when the two weeks were up and Jon inconspicuously fitted himself into her life even though he was supposed to return to the valley. She accepts him. It'll never move further than this, but she still wants him right here with her and Iselinde. Every night for the rest of her life she wants to lie, just like this, and rest her eyes on the handsome face that has meant home to her ever since she found him again one cold winter day when her whole body ached and her heart longed for safety. She wants to rests her eyes on the faint lines she’ll see grow deeper, on the hair she’ll see turn gray, on the man she’ll grow old with after all. It’s not what she once dreamed of, no, but it’s still good, this life they share.

This is not their wedding night--and yet it's the best wedding night she's ever had (and ever will).

* * *

* * *

Kari knocks on the door to the Queen’s chamber. Waits for an answer. When one doesn’t come, she gingerly pushes the door open and peers inside. The royal family sleeps together in the royal bed, the princess safe between her parents and eating with loud gulps, her hand curled around the neckline of her mother's nightgown. Kari often finds them like this in the mornings. Sometimes the Queen is already awake (or at least half-awake); sometimes, like now, she’s fallen back asleep after helping her daughter to the breast--but Kari never sees what she sees now: in their sleep, the Queen and her cousin have moved as close as they can with their foreheads touching and their hands clasped beneath their daughter and their legs entangled under the furs.

They never get any time together, those two. If one isn’t holding the princess, the other one is. And the few times they hand Princess Iselinde to Kari, Jon rides off to Willowsmere to do whatever he’s doing up there. Small wonder their bodies act on the desires they have no time for in the day.

Well, Kari’s job is to anticipate the Queen’s needs and she's become rather good at it over the years, if she may ring her own bell, and so she pads closer and waits for Iselinde to release the breast before picking her up from the bed.

“Morning, Princess,” Kari whispers and lays her over her shoulder, stroking the baby's back while she swivels gently from side to side. “Kari will take you for a moment, yes she will.” She clears her throat gently and says with a louder voice. “I’ll give the Princess a bath, Your Grace, and play with her for a bit. You sleep in, now. You and your cousin.”

“Thank you, Kari,” Queen Sansa mumbles and rolls over on her other side with a muffled groan.

Kari remembers that feeling well. How sore one would be after lying on one side all night to feed a babe--especially after her good-for-nothing husband had beaten her black and blue, but at least the Queen won’t suffer that. Not with Lord Jon by her side.

With Iselinde on her hip, Kari picks up a couple of toys, a blanket, and a new set of clothes for the princess. Furs rustling draws back her attention briefly to the bed as she leaves. Lord Jon has wrapped himself around Queen Sansa, as snug as you like, while she’s hugging his arm to her chest.

Aye, they need this, those two. Perhaps, once they get to love one another again, they'll even come to their senses and get married already.

Nodding sagely to herself, Kari leaves them to it.  
  
  


* * *

* * *

Humming, Sansa flutters her eyes open and squints at the light squeezing through the cracks in the shutters. She's warm and comfortable, floating on a summer cloud. With another hum, she burrows closer to that warmth wrapped around her. Someone groans in her ear, bucks against her, cups her breast in a warm hand. _Jon_. Oh, he’s hard. Hard and hot--and her body responds instantly. _Aches_ for him. It would be so easy to tug up her nightgown, to tug down his smallclothes, to let him in. It would be so easy to give in and pretend it never happened.

In the rift between night and day and sleep and wakefulness, what they choose to do doesn’t quite count. 

She pushes against him. A test. An invitation. Pushing back, he releases her breast to grip her hip and keep her flush against him--and that grip is so hard it pulls her out of that rift where anything can happen and thrusts her into the harsh light of day where regret already waits in the shadows.

She plucks his hand from her hip. “Jon.”

With a breath sharp as a knife, he pulls away. When she turns around, he’s sitting in bed with his back to her, his feet on the floor, a tunic in his hands, ready to leave.

“Jon," she says again. His arms, already inside the sleeves of his tunic, lower to his lap. "We need to talk about our arrangement. _Really_ talk.”

The whole world moves with his sigh. "Aye, suppose we do."

The vows they exchanged last night were like stilling hunger with broth. It might give you the illusion of being full for a moment, but sooner or later the hunger returns. You need a proper meal or you’ll starve.

She'll just have to be really careful about what she ends up serving.


	26. Break Me Unfurl Me Read Me

She’s in a simple dove gray dress, finger-combed hair draped over one shoulder, lips pursed into a rosebud, hands folded primly in her lap, head perched on a proud neck. It couldn’t have felt more like an audience with the Queen had the meeting taken place in her office with a desk and their titles separating them.

Jon still doesn’t know how she does that. In the time it took for him to jump into his clothes, give his face and mouth a quick wash, and visit the privy, she had managed to make herself look presentable rather than as if she just rolled out of bed like him.

He cards a hand through his tousled hair and sits on the edge of the divan.

She’s opened the shutters to let in the thin light and raw air of early morning. The noises of servants preparing the castle for a new day stream into the room too. Their guests, however, must be sleeping-- even the children, who all were up past their usual bedtime.

Their guests.

If this doesn’t go well…

His mouth feels dry, his hands damp, as if all the moisture in one place left to occupy the other. He wipes them on his thighs, staring around the room for a pitcher of water. The wind picks up, then, scattering the wilted flowers on the vanity all over the floor. Sansa shudders. Without thinking, he gets up to fetch her a blanket only to sit down again when she gives him a look he can’t decide whether it’s annoyed or puzzled.

Perhaps they should wait until after their guests have left. He remembers well the suffocating tension that hung over Winterfell the few times Lord and Lady Stark had an argument so big even the gossip-hungry servants quieted.

Yes, they should wait. But before he’s opened his mouth to suggest it, Sansa takes a deep breath to speak and he forgets about his dry mouth, about the flowers on the flagstones, about the guests sleeping in their beds.

“The terms of our arrangement are vague,” she says. “We should’ve remedied that a long time ago--like when you were supposed to leave. Two weeks, wasn’t it? That’s what you said. That was months ago.”

Jon nods, staring down at his lap.

“When you stayed, I assumed that’s what you wanted. Staying at Winterfell indefinitely. You didn’t say anything--you didn’t even acknowledge it--so it’s how I interpreted it. But last night you said…” Her thumb moves to the hollow of her palm; she stretches out her fingers before relaxing them in her lap. “I’m tired of making assumptions, Jon. I honestly have no idea what you want. I don’t even know whether _you_ know what you want. Do you?”

He takes a deep breath through his nose and looks up at her. “Aye. I do.”

“Then tell me. Please. Tell me what you want--and don’t talk about building a cabin by the mere unless that is what you would choose if you could be selfish and only think about yourself. Tell me what _you_ want.”

Jon adjusts in his seat, dragging his hands up his thighs as he settles back in. Had this been a real meeting with the Queen, he would’ve come prepared, but now all his thoughts and wants and wishes lie in a tangled heap he’s pushed into a locked cage in his chest. There are two things, though--only two--he can carefully extricate without the whole thing collapsing and send secrets scattering over the floor like those flowers.

“I never felt Iselinde kick,” he says. “I think about it all the time. Every time I hold her little feet. Every time she gets excited and kicks her little legs... I wonder what it felt like. What else I would miss if I lived somewhere else. I don’t want to miss anything else. Not her first steps or her first words or even the first dress she sews... And if she wants to fight, I want to teach her. I want to teach her how to ride and hunt and fish. To do all that, I have to be here. At Winterfell. And not as your guest. I want Winterfell to be my home.”

“This _is_ your home. It always was. I’ve told you over and over. I don’t understand why you--” She presses her lips together, holding back the steam that started to hiss out of her, and opens them again to let it out in a long, slow breath instead. Calmed, she continues: “Winterfell is your home. I want you here too. Have you given any thought to what you want to do?”

“I want to build a stud farm at the mere. I’ve got it all planned out. After all those wars, Westeros still needs horses--and not just destriers either. Workhorses were lost in the wars too. Starved, killed, stolen, slaughtered to feed hungry families. Farmers, stone masons, merchants--they all need workhorses. Strong horses who can pull heavy loads and who have the right temperament.”

“Shadow. You want to breed horses like her.”

“Not purely, but yeah. I’d need quite a bit of land, if you’d let it to me.”

“Let it? You don’t have to pay--”

“I don’t want to be a kept man. When I die, the farm will be Iselinde’s, of course, but until then…”

“You don’t have any money.”

“Drustan will buy Dragonstone. I don’t want it.”

“You’ve spoken to _Drustan_ about this?”

“Aye. And Sam. And Oskar. I want to hire him. He’s good with horses and he knows a lot about them. I’ll need him.”

Sansa arches a brow. “You’re stealing my stable boy?”

“He’s a person,” Jon says, smiling. “He can’t be stolen.”

“No, he can’t. If Oskar wants to work for you, you have my blessing.” She gives a smile too, small and gentle. “I think it sounds like a wonderful idea, Jon. It suits you. So… You’ll stay at Winterfell. You’ll start a stud farm. Anything else?”

Jon’s chest tightens around his wants and wishes, pushing shut the door he left ajar. He shifts in his seat. Flexes his hands. They’re damp again. He wipes them dry on his breeches, fingers searching for the hole in the knee he used to pick at before he remembers all his holes are mended now. 

Sansa says nothing, only sits there as calm and quiet as the statues in the crypt. Statues of old Starks. Generations and generations of Starks. For eight thousand years, the Starks have held Winterfell and it all almost ended in his lifetime when their enemies started picking them off one by one.

“I want more children.”

The words come out in a rush and he sucks in a breath, staring up at Sansa who looks as shocked as he feels. She recovers quickly, though, finds her old mask. Becomes a statue anew.

“We had a good childhood,” he says. “Even me. Far better than I understood back then. I felt too sorry for myself to see what I had. Not sure I’ve outgrown that habit yet…” Exhaling, he lifts one corner of his mouth and strokes his fingers over the unmarred fabric covering his knee. “I want Iselinde to have that. Brothers and sisters whom she can play with, fight with. It’ll ground her, teach her how to be a Stark, how to be part of a pack. She needs a pack, Sansa. She shouldn’t have to be just a princess.”

Sansa takes in his words with her head bowed. The sunlight casts shadows from her lashes, makes them dance over her cheeks when she blinks. 

“After what happened yesterday, it might seem as if…” She swallows, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in her skirt. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t thinking at all. But I’m glad you left. I’m grateful. I’m not ready to share a bed in that way. But… You’re right. I’ve had similar thoughts. Especially now with all these children here.”

“You have?”

“Yes. And I do… I do want more children. I just don’t know whether I’ll ever… It’s complicated.”

“Yeah,” he says with a breathy chuckle, “you can say that again.”

“I’m not saying no,” she says and he can’t help but lean the slightest bit closer, “I need to think about it.”

“Take all the time you need, Sansa.”

He feels his foolish heart beat a little faster, feels his foolish mouth smile a little wider, but her gaze drifts away from him. Lands on those wilted flowers on the floor.

“Anything else?”

His smile fades. His racing heart slows until it plods along only because it has to.

Sometimes romantic feelings go away, that’s what she said, if the feelings never ran that deep in the first place--and perhaps they didn’t. Whatever she once felt for Jon faded long ago and now it’s too late for him and her.

“No,” he says. “You?”

Her chest expands with a breath. “No, I don’t think so. We should do this again, though. Things change; we change. We shouldn’t go this long with so much unsaid between us again. Perhaps once every three months?”

“What, you want us to schedule meetings?”

“It’s only practical. It’s what I do with everyone with whom I have arrangements. We have meetings where we can air different matters and maintain our working relationship. This isn’t much different.”

“No, suppose not.” He rubs his eye with two fingers. “All right. Every three months.”

“Well, if there’s nothing else…” She rises to her feet and he does too. “Perhaps we should break our fast. Then, if you’d like, we can discuss your stud farm in further detail. I imagine you’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“Good.”

Smiling at him, she motions at him to leave. Leave the chamber, leave the meeting that only just got started, that only just warmed him up. She’s so tall and regal, looking the queen rather than the woman with whom he lies down at night, with whom he breaks his fast every morning, with whom he’ll share the rest of his life without being--

“Jon?”

And if they have more children...

Jon sinks back down on the divan.

“Was there something else?”

“I want to get married.”

He never felt his lips move, never felt his voice rumble in his throat, but he knows from the way she stares at him that the words left his mouth--and there’s no turning back now. All he can do is carefully pluck that want from the cage, brush off any secret wishes clinging to it, and present it as well as possible.

“I know you’ve said it’ll never happen,” he says, and she sits back down too, “but you asked me what I want so now I’m telling you what I want: I want to get married. I don’t want my children to be bastards. I never have. And I want what Sam and Gilly have. Or even Brienne and Perceon. They’re _together_ \--and their children know it. They know their mother and father are… are…”

He looks down at his hands and brings them together, clasping one around the other until they form one tight-knit shape. Then he looks up at her and raises his joined hands, willing her to understand how he needs them to be _one_.

Still, she says nothing. Still she waits. So he gathers himself, fills his lungs with air, and continues.

“I want to give Iselinde what you had. What I didn’t. When I had nightmares, I had nowhere to go. But you? You came in here and you climbed up in that bed and you found your mother _and_ your father there. You lay between them and you felt _safe_. I want that for our daughter--and for any other children we might have. I want them to know their mother and father are committed and _together_. And I know we gave a vow last night. And I believe you meant it, Sansa, I really do. But things change. You said it yourself. Things change and we change. You might find someone--and what happens to me then? I know I said I didn’t want to stand in your way--and of course I don’t. But you wanted to know what _I_ want. Just me. If I get to be selfish. And if I get to be selfish, I want you to be my wife.”

As if he was submerged and climbed toward the surface with each word he gave until he finally broke free, Jon sucks in a big gulp of air and lets it out again in a shuddering exhale that leaves him slouching. Gripping the edge of the divan, he stares down at the exquisite fabric and catches his breath in silence. Waits for her to respond, to react, to say anything at all. But that silence stretches on and on until he can’t take it anymore.

“Sansa. I deserve to be more than the Queen’s stud horse.”

Wide, glossy eyes stare at him. Blink. Look away. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips before she returns to him, in control again, and he knows it’s a no before she’s even opened her mouth.

“You do,” she says. “You do deserve more. And what you’re saying, it’s all very sensible. Part of me even agrees.”

“But?” he says, nostrils flaring.

“But,” she says. “You know the North might not accept you in that position. And, more importantly, I’ve been married twice. Both were marriages of convenience where I had little to no choice. And I know it wouldn’t be like it was with them. I know you would be a _good_ husband. But I promised myself a long time ago that only one thing could ever compel me to marry again. I’m sorry, Jon. I won’t marry you. I do have a choice, now, and I’ll only ever marry for love.”

There’s nothing of the Queen about her now. With her eyes downcast and her cheeks the faintest shade of pink, she’s all Sansa. The woman who once dreamed of love and romance, who showed him her broken heart and claimed she’s done with it all, who might marry him after all if only he shows her his heart in return.

_You gotta start giving a little._

Jon closes his eyes with a slow exhale and commits.

“And what if I love you?” he says, opening his eyes. “Would that change anything?”

Sansa’s eyes cut to him, but she slips back into her Queen’s face so quickly he can’t tell whether she looked hopeful or shocked.

“I know you love me, Jon. But it’s not the kind of love I mean. I mean romantic love.”

Jon scoots a bit closer, holding her gaze. “So do I.”

Her mouth falls open, but once more she finds herself quickly and offers an almost weary smile. “Maybe you think you do. You’re happy. After years of being miserable, you’re finally happy because you’re so in love with your daughter and that love extends to me. But, believe me, once this euphoria settles a bit, you’ll see it for what it is. _Happiness_.”

“What?” He scrunches up his face. “What are you--”

“I’ve seen this before,” she says in the tone of an adult explaining the world to a child. “A woman gives a man a child and the gratitude and happiness he feels--”

“You’re wrong. That’s not why I--”

“Did you hear your proposal? If one can call it that. You listed all the reasons as to why we should marry, but didn’t say a single thing about _me_. Why you’d want _me_ to be your wife. Only why you wanted to marry the mother of your child!”

“I only did that because I thought--”

“If it were _me_ you wanted, you would’ve fallen in love with me before the baby. Don’t you think it’s strange that you suddenly love me after Iselinde is born?”

“But I didn’t--”

“Isn’t that a little too convenient, Jon? _Think_ about it.”

He growls out his frustration. “You are bleeding impossible, do you know that?”

“You’re _confused_.”

He gets to his feet, scanning the room with his eyes. “Where’s your ink and parchment.”

“What?”

“Where is-- Oh, nevermind.”

He stalks out of her chamber and into his own, pulls the drawers open, gets what he needs, flings the shutters open to shower the desk in light so he can fucking see, presses the quill too hard, bleeds ink all over the parchment, lets out another growl, takes a new strip of parchment, eases out a breath through clenched teeth, tries again.

“What are you doing?” Her shadow falls from the door opening over the flagstones, almost all the way to his desk.

“Writing.”

“Yes, I can see that. _Why_?”

He finds the firestriker and lights a candle, melts wax, drips it onto the scroll, pushes a direwolf sigil into the soft, hot wax. Waits for it to cool. Ignoring her and the impatience she radiates the whole time. Then he strides over to her and holds up the scroll.

“When you asked me to write down everything I knew about the valley, I did. But I wrote something else too. Something for you. And you _burned_ it.” He takes one of her hands and presses the scroll into it, closing her fingers around it. “This is what it said. Word for word. Perhaps read it this time.”

Then he huffs and stalks off.

* * *

* * *

Sansa no longer remembers how many times she stared at that scroll, how many times the seal called for her to break it, how many times she wondered whether he’d left a message for her before dismissing the idea and letting the scroll remain unread.

She strokes her thumb over the messily stamped seal. A message for their unborn child, yes, but one for her? No. She never mattered that much. Not until a life took root in her belly and lured back a side of him that had gotten lost somewhere between Winterfell and Dragonstone and she wasn’t sure she’d ever see again. (A side she couldn’t help but wonder whether she’d only ever imagined in the first place.)

She gives a push. The seal breaks. She unfurls the scroll and reads it.

She reads it again and again and again. She reads it through a veil of tears with trembling hands and trembling gasps until the words are etched in her mind and she sees them even when she closes her eyes to let the tears fall.

“ _I love you, Sansa. Deeply. Foolishly. And I was yours. Then. Now. Always.”_

Her knees buckle and she staggers to his bed where she collapses on the furs and holds onto the bed pole while listening to her ragged breaths mingling with the wild beats of her hearts that drown out even the clamor streaming in from the open window. 

It’s not possible.

It’s not.

She lets go of the bed pole and wipes her face. Waits for her bottom lip to stop quivering, for her eyes to stop welling, for her heart to beat, strong and calm.

Then she returns to her chamber and finds the box that became the other scroll’s home for all those months, and the heart-shaped key that belongs to it. As she lays down the scroll on the velvet bed and locks the box, she almost laughs at that. A hysterical laughter that only ever bubbles in her chest before she smothers it. A romantic box for a romantic scroll with words that should be the sweetest words she’s ever read.

If only they felt true at all.

* * *

* * *

Shy splashes through the shallow water, eyes locked on a dark shadow moving beneath the surface. Then his head dives down and brings back a fat fish that flaps between his jaws. He carries it up to the grassy field, several feet from Jon, where Fox is lapping up sunlight and keeping an eye on their surroundings. Shy drops it by her feet and returns to the mere. She doesn’t tuck into her food until he returns with a fish for himself.

Above them hungry birds already circle, waiting for the wolves to finish their meal so they can feast on the scraps. Jon leans back on his elbows and watches them soar. 

Drustan was right. Jon had nothing to lose. Either she loves him or she doesn’t. He’ll still stay at Winterfell, he’ll still have his daughter, he’ll still have the mere where he’ll build his farm and do the only work that makes sense to him anymore.

Shy and Fox raise their heads, mouths dripping with fish blood. Shadow, who’s been grazing with her tail swishing at flies, lifts her head too. Ears perked, all three animals stare at something behind Jon. Then he hears it too: the soft clops of a horse trotting over the spring-green grass. 

His animal companions resume eating. Their calm takes away his. He sits up properly and waits, listening to leather creaking as she dismounts and secures the reins to one of the birches, and to the rustle of her skirts as she moves over the grass and sits by his side. The scent of rosewater fills the air and he allows himself to breathe it in while she tucks her legs under her and drapes out the skirts, even though there’s no one out here but bugs and bees who could catch her being unladylike. 

“You like this place,” she says.

“I do.”

“I do too. It’s beautiful.”

He glances at her through the corner of his eyes. Pink roses bloom on her cheeks.

“Aye. The North is very beautiful. There’s no other place like it.”

Shaking her head, she licks her lips. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘ _Then_?’ When was ‘then?’”

“The whole time. You were right. When you thought I felt the same. I did. I do.”

“No. I was wrong. You’ve always wanted a red haired lady wife and I’m--”

“Why do you think I like red hair, Sansa? Have you ever wondered?”

Her brow knits. “No. You liked red hair _before_ we--” She blinks, a soft breath leaving her when she turns her head to find him looking at her without wavering. “You’re not suggesting…”

“No, I'm not. But I’ve always admired you. Always. Aye, I wanted a mother like yours for my children. I wanted a marriage like your mother and father’s marriage. But the _wife_ I wanted…” He suppresses the impulse to stroke her cheek, to feel that velvet-soft skin beneath his rough fingers. “You were like a maiden in a song. Sweet and gentle and the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. And I was still a lord’s son--even if I was a bastard. I was raised to admire women like you. To want women like you. I didn’t love you then, not like that, but I thought you were perfect. Everything a lady was supposed to be."

“I didn’t think you even liked me.”

“Oh, I did. It’s why it hurt so much. That distance you always kept between us. An appropriate distance, aye, but none of the others kept it. None of the others cared. Only you. Even that day in the tower, when we played, it still felt as if there were miles between us. As if you really were the princess and I the beast. I was never your brother, but I really wanted to be. I wanted you to admire me the way you admired Robb. I couldn’t imagine anything sweeter than Lady Sansa looking at me as if I were her hero. Because if that happened, maybe I wasn’t so bad after all.”

“You were never bad.”

“I was a bastard, Sansa. I was allowed, not accepted.”

“Is that why you didn’t say goodbye to me? When you left Winterfell. You gave Arya a gift; I didn’t even get a goodbye.”

“I didn’t think you’d notice I left.”

“I noticed,” she says in a small enough voice he can easily imagine little Sansa waiting for a boy who never came.

“Yeah, I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.” he says, rubbing his jaw. “I didn’t understand myself. I didn’t understand you. Didn’t think much about you after I left Winterfell. Didn’t realize why I thought red was the prettiest color until I saw you again.”

She was so beautiful that day. Dirty and cold and tired and so beautiful it knocked all sense out of his head. All conscious thought. Jon didn't move his legs down those stairs. No, it was her inexorable pull on him that had him moving closer and closer until he could see the winter-blue tint of lips that should be petal-pink and healthy. 

“You hugged me,” he says, voice raspy. “You hugged me and I was yours. I didn’t know it yet. Took me a while. Not that clever about these things.” He smiles crookedly, tugging at a wilted blade of grass. “Castle Black was the coldest place in the world that day, but then you came and made everything feel so warm. You confided in me. Shared your pain with me. Relied on me. Accepted me. You even apologized. I felt dizzy.” He exhales in a laugh. “I told myself it was the ale, but it was you. It was all you.”

He chances a glance at her. She’s watching him much like she did that day, with her head slightly turned to him and her lips softly parted and her usually narrow eyes wide open, almost round. Then the hearthlight colored them the deep nameless shade of forest tarns he tumbled into helplessly and against his will; now the sunlight pales them into the greenish blue of seafoam-laced waters he'd float in happily for the rest of his days.

“You made me dizzy,” he whispers. “You still do.”

He imagines there’s hope in there, in those blue eyes, a warm glimmer that pulls him closer and closer as if she bound him to herself with a spell, just like that day in the courtyard.

But then Sansa breaks that spell with a shake of her head. “You treated me like an obligation. Like it was your duty to take care of me. Yes, we had nice moments too or I wouldn’t have-- But Jon… I don’t understand.”

He sighs and looks out over the mere instead, at a ruff having a wash at the edge of the water and spraying droplets around him. They glitter in the sunlight. It’s a gorgeous day, really. Feathery clouds streak a cornflower blue sky. A mild breeze carries the scent of damp grass and cherry blossom. The sun wraps them in enough warmth to stave off the lingering winter-chill in the air. One that doesn’t fully vanish until the world explodes into summer.

He has so many secrets left. Things he’s never shared with anyone, except Tormund one night when Jon was so fucking drunk he forgot to lock up the cage after he’d opened it to wallow in his own misery. Everything came rushing out, then. Or most of it, anyway, before Jon realized what happened, pushed it all back, and slammed the door shut.

She’s waiting for them, he knows, for words long overdue that could fuck everything up even further. That could make her understand, finally. That could make her say yes.

She deserves to hear them no matter the outcome.

Nodding to himself, Jon unlocks the cage and pulls the door wide open.


	27. The Princess, the Beast, and the Orchid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is a brief depiction of loss of appetite in this chapter. Just wanted to warn in case that can be triggering.

Bellies full, Shy and Fox have vanished--and so have the birds who feasted on their leftovers, and the ruff who bathed at the shoreline. Save the occasional snort from Sansa’s horse, the singing of birds in the distance, and the muted buzz of bees, the world has quieted itself for Jon. Sansa is quiet too. Waiting. Best get to it, then. He’s kept her waiting long enough already.

He tugs up the wilted blade of grass he’s been toying with, and twisting it between his fingers, clears his throat and goes back to that day at Castle Black when she came for him.

That’s what he believed, anyway. That she came for him, for family. But soon he realized she’d come for a soldier, an army. She wasn’t a child anymore. After a life of pain and loss and betrayal, she’d learned how to fight and fight dirty too (just like him). And now she wanted to fight for Winterfell.

She cloaked him as a Stark, though, claimed him as her own--and he so desperately wanted to be both that he told himself she loved him. 

“In some manner, at least,” he murmurs with a crooked smile without looking at her. “And that was enough. Protecting you was my duty. My honor. Told myself I’d be whatever you needed me to be. So I was your soldier. And you betrayed me.”

Death was a strange thing. For all the talk about gods and heavens and hells, there was nothing but black. Melisandre might’ve pulled him out of it, but the world he found himself was muted and dull and so cold he didn’t know whether he’d ever be warm again, as if some part of him still existed in that black nothingness and pumped an endless chill into his veins. 

“Being with you… Everything felt a bit brighter. A bit warmer. But then I was in the mud. Fighting. Drowning. Dying again.”

He stares up at the sky. It was paler that day. The pale blue of her eyes. Whenever the heap of broken men above him moved, he caught another glimpse of that blue and that’s what helped him climb. He needed to fight for her, live for her. There was nothing else left but her. But when he reached the top, when he’d fought himself out of the black trying to reclaim him and floated atop his decimated army, he found she had an army of her own. One who arrived in the nick of time to save the day that was so very close to being his last.

That night, after he’d peeled muddy, bloody armor off his body and washed death from his limbs and face, he dreamed of his brothers. He dreamed they lured him out in the courtyard with the promise of Rickon, safe and sound with Shaggydog by his side.

“But I didn’t find Rickon. It was you. And you had a knife in your hand.”

He never even noticed the blade moving until his knees gave way and he collapsed on the icy ground. Once more sinking into the dark to the sound of her laughter dancing in the air like a maiden at a feast. He woke up, sweating, with her voice still ringing in his ears.

“It wasn’t laughter, though. You were screaming. So loud. Heard it even down the hallway.”

He put his pain aside, helped her out of her nightmare, and stayed in her doorway, a shield between her and the shadows haunting Winterfell. The grateful smile she gave him as she settled in and closed her eyes to drift peacefully into sleep pained him more than the cuts and bruises all over his weary body. She relied on him while he’d wondered whether she, so deep down she might not know it herself, was hoping he would’ve died on the battlefield. She’d be rid of the bastard, then. The boy who was never good enough to be her brother.

It was a dark thought in a dark moment. To repent, even though his body ached for bed (even though it ached to lie down next to her and take her in his arms and seek comfort as well as give it), he settled down with his back against the cold stone and protected her until the early rays of morning broke through the cracks in the shutters. 

“You had been betrayed too. I know you wouldn’t be quick to trust. We didn’t even know each other. Not really. So when you apologized, I thought it didn’t really matter why you did what you did. I would forgive you and we would move forward. We had more important things to worry about.”

As long as he knew his place, he reckoned, everything would be fine. He was the Bastard of Winterfell; she was its lady. He would serve her. Even after the Night King fell, if Jon himself still stood then, he would serve her. It was his penance. For not riding south sooner, after Father died, when Robb needed him, when she and Arya needed him. 

“I would protect House Stark until my final breath--and you _were_ House Stark. You were...”

His warmth. His hearth. His home. She was everything. How could he ever leave her? How could he ever go back to that muted, dull world where cold seeped into his bones?

(He doesn’t tell her that part, doesn’t have the words for it, only a choking feeling in his throat when he thinks about how he clung to her as if she were the only bright thing keeping him from sinking back into the dark.)

“You were my family,” he says instead, voice thick. “And for a while everything was great.”

While their men healed after the battle, Jon and Sansa healed too by falling into a surprisingly comfortable routine surprisingly quickly. As if life had eaten at them in a way that left them in matching shapes and they just fit without chafing. Not like a hand in a glove, but like two hands clasped, fingers entwined. Strong and together. Those dark thoughts didn’t plague him then. But then the Northern lords named him king, and he and Sansa started to chafe after all.

“It should’ve been you,” he rasps out. “You won the battle, not me. You avenged the Red Wedding, not me. You were the one who suffered under Ramsay’s…” He twists and tugs at that blade of grass until it snaps. “Last time I was in charge of anything, my own men killed me. That’s how good I was. I was a bastard, a turncloak. I led my own men into being slaughtered because I saw Rickon and forgot everything else. Didn’t care about the strategy, just charged forward. How many men did we lose because of my foolishness? And still I knew I’d do it all over again. Just in case I’d succeed this time. That’s not what a king should do. I wasn’t good enough. But they still named me king. When it should’ve been you.”

He saw it in her, sometimes, when she wasn’t quick enough to hide behind her lady armor. A judging side-eye. A displeased purse of her lips. A poorly stifled sigh. A lady’s version of an eyeroll, too discreet and graceful to be vulgar. An exasperated note in her voice whenever she hid her criticism behind well-meaning advice.

“You were the clever one. You were the trueborn Stark. You would be better at it. I knew it. You knew it. But you still supported me, because that was your duty. That was expected of you--and you always did what was expected of you. Just like when you were a girl and kept your distance. Always the perfect lady.”

That dark thought returned. Whenever he was tired and doubted himself, whenever he saw that creep Baelish lurking about, it returned and grew itself a whisper-thin voice that nagged at the back of his mind, intruded on his dreams, refused to go away. Just like that fucking weasel.

Jon finds another blade of grass, needs to occupy his hands somehow, still gets that itch in them whenever he thinks about Baelish.

“He was always whispering in your ear. Whispering about me. I was terrified he knew. That he told you. Or insinuated, at least. That I felt things I shouldn’t. And if you knew… Every time I caught Lord Baelish watching me with that fucking smirk of his, that voice told me you were just waiting for me to fuck everything up so you could throw me out and take over. That you hid it by being kind to me.”

She _was_ kind, good to him--and every time it fed his unwanted, inappropriate feelings. The way she mended his clothes almost before he even noticed the holes. The way she had supper sent to his office when he worked too late and forgot about the time. The way she was always so aware of when and for how long he trained so that, once he was done, the servants had poured a bath for him without him having to do a thing. The way she took care of him as if she were his wife. Gods, how he loved her for it. 

And mistrusted her for it. She’d told him about the little dove she learned to be in King’s Landing. Sweet and innocent and dutiful to hide how she truly felt. Every gift, every gesture, was either heartfelt or manipulative--he could never decide which was true.

That dark voice inside him grew from whispering to grating. Soon she could barely open her mouth without him bristling. 

“But then I had to leave. I had to meet an enemy and you didn’t want me to go. You had Winterfell, you had your army. I’d told you everything I knew about the Night King. You didn’t need me anymore. Not really. It could only mean one thing: you didn’t want to lose _me_. You loved _me_. Not the way I loved you, no, but you did love me. All those things you did, they really meant something. And leaving you was… It was difficult, Sansa. One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. When I left Winterfell, I left my heart with you.”

He left his doubts too. She made him a Stark and he had to believe it, draped himself in it the way he draped himself in his cloak no matter how hard the southern sun bore down on him. It was his armor against a different kind of heat (but equally unrelenting and overbearing). And all that time, as he tried playing a game he knew she’d play better, he thought of home, longed for home, longed for her. Saw her standing there on the balcony with snowflakes caught in her long flowing hair whenever he closed his eyes. Did everything he could to make it back home--even more so when he learned about Arya and Bran. Nothing but killing the Night King existed. He had to protect his family.

It wouldn’t be easy, but at least he had Sansa by his side.

“But I didn’t, did I. I thought you’d take one look at us and understand. That you would trust me and have faith in me and _help_ me, but you didn’t. You insulted her. You looked at her as if she were a little girl playing at the games of grown men and women. You wouldn’t even return the compliment she gave you. I’d expected Arya to grouse a bit, but _you_? The perfect lady?” He exhales a tired laughter. “Never expected that. And it only got worse. She’d barely been at Winterfell an hour before she hated you, before she threatened you--and I had to distract her.”

He drags a hand over his mouth and shakes himself free of memories he still can’t stand to relive.

He wanted to tell Sansa, then. Intended on telling her even, when he came to her that evening. But instead they started fighting and when he looked up at her, at the tears in her eyes…

“You believed I’d fallen for her. That I’d given away everything we fought for. What Robb _died_ for. You had no faith in me. We were never what I thought we were. So I couldn’t tell you the truth. I didn’t know what you’d do with it. And the more days that passed, I just got more and more sure it was better to keep my mouth shut. Every chance you got, you went against her. Up until the day she left. I'd just gotten her to agree to not attack King's Landing with her dragons after all, and what do you do? I couldn't understand why. If you were so bleeding clever, if you'd learned so much from Cersei and Baelish and the rest of them, why did you keep provoking the most dangerous woman alive? Surely, you could tell how she loathed you? I couldn't make sense of it. Why you kept stoking fires I kept putting out. That’s why I never told you about her. But I had to tell you and Arya about your father. You needed to know he never betrayed your mother. That he lied to protect me. And I needed you to know who I was. I needed you to..." He bows his head. "I needed you to save me."

Oh, he knew she was likely to break her promise. Deep down he knew. He knew he should've told Arya alone and sworn her to secrecy or he should've told Bran to tell his sisters if Jon died. But he didn't. He wouldn't admit it to himself then. That he shamefully dumped it all in Sansa's lap like a child hoping to be rescued. But he did. With the Night King gone and Daenerys on her way to get rid off Cersei too, maybe Sansa could rid them of their final enemy and save him. If he mattered enough.

When Varys came to him on a windy beach and made it clear Sansa had shared the secret, for the briefest moment, Jon was relieved. He would be saved. Sansa had a plan. She and Varys had a plan. If only he stayed passive, did nothing to endanger those plans, he would be saved.

“But then she burned Varys alive in front of me and I realized you had no plan. I was trapped, more than ever. She told me it was all your fault that Varys burned, as if you forced her hand, and I knew I would be next unless I was careful and then nothing would stand between her and you. She _hated_ you, Sansa. I think she might’ve known. That we… That we were more husband and wife than anything else. Because we were. No, we didn’t kiss or… But before I left, we filled those roles in each other’s lives. We ruled the North, you and I, and she knew it. The people loved you and that made her hate you even more. You had everything she wanted.”

He’d never felt more alone than that night. One wrong move and he would burn and then the dragon queen would fly north and torch the rest until nothing Stark, nothing northern, remained. She’d burn the Free Folk too. She’d burn it all. 

“But I stopped her in the end. Got caught. Thrown in a cell. And I thought of you. I wondered whether you cared. Whether you missed me. I wondered why I cared when you seemed to care so little about me and my safety. I thought about everything that had happened, why you’d done all the things you’d done, and in the end only one answer made any sense at all: you _were_ doing what Baelish taught you. You sowed chaos to rid the world of two tyrants, and I was a casualty you were willing to pay because you thought about the people, like a ruler should. Robb had done the same. He was willing to sacrifice you and Arya to win the war. To make the North an independent kingdom again. And you were never angry with Robb for it. You understood. But me? I was angry. Gods, I was angry.

“Then I learn that, somehow, Tyrion bleeding Lannister--who brought her here in the first place and who’d kept me prisoner and who’d betrayed our family and all of Westeros--had become my little brother’s Hand while I was condemned. I was banished to the Wall by my own family. By my own friends. Oh, Tyrion told me who was there. You and Arya and Bran and Sam and Gendry and Davos… I was angry. I was angry with all of you. And yet you and Arya cried at that pier. You both hugged me as if you loved me. Even you. Especially you. And I was confused again--but I was tired of being confused. I was tired of trying to figure out what you meant. I needed to go away for a while. I needed to disappear, to hide not just from you but from _everything_. But you still haunted me. Aye, I left my heart with you when I left Winterfell and I never took it back.

“That’s why I did what I did. I told you to trust me, to have faith in me--and you did--but I never returned the favor. It was me. I was the one who never trusted you. I was the one who didn’t have faith in you. And I regret it so much, Sansa. If only I had listened to my heart instead of that fucking voice and trusted you, if only I had confided in you, everything would’ve been different.”

He can’t remember ever speaking for that long; now his throat is tight and tired, his voice hoarse. Shame prickles his cheeks, leaving them as hot and stinging as his eyes. But there’s relief too. He might’ve taken every hurt, every slight, every betrayal and fashioned armor out of it as prickly as a hedgehog skin, but now, as he exhales the last of the breath he took to speak, the armor falls away and leaves him bare, aye, but free too.

But when he turns to Sansa, when he finally looks at her to tell her the rest, he finds her curled up with her knees to her chest and her cheeks wet with tears. Her sleeves are wet too, as if she’s wiped her cheeks dry over and over until she gave up.

“Sansa,” he says, reaching out for her, but she shies away from his touch and he lets his hand drop to the ground.

She sniffles, dabbing her cheeks dry with the hem of her skirt. “You don’t love me,” she mumbles with a thick voice. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s not love.”

“It is.”

“It’s not.” She turns to him, then, eyes endlessly tired and red-rimmed from tears. “That woman you’re describing, she’s not someone you love. She’s someone you despise. Someone you fear. She's a monster.”

“But I was wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter. You still believed I was capable of all those things. You believed them only a year ago. You said it yourself. You believed I manipulated you when we--” She lets out an unsteady breath. “I can be cold sometimes--I know that--but I am not unfeeling. I didn’t even want you to leave Winterfell, I was desperate to keep you with me, and you thought I wanted you _dead._ ”

“You don’t understand--”

“Just stop. I do understand. I understand perfectly. Finally. I'm sorry for--"

“You don’t want to believe me, do you.”

“Believe you? Would _you_ believe you? I never felt loved by you--and now I know why." She laughs wetly. "I've spent so much time daydreaming about this moment. I can't believe I ever thought it would be romantic. I'm such an idiot."

“But you thought-- At one point, Sansa, you believed I felt the same. Remember? You were right."

“You _wanted_ me. That’s what I noticed. I just didn’t know the difference before Drustan and--”

Jon rolls his eyes.

“Stop being a child. I don’t love Drustan. Not that way. I was infatuated, yes, but it was never that deep. Not on my end. But he did love me and I found that… It’s a good feeling. To be loved for once. Truly loved. Not just desired. I couldn’t tell the difference before him because no one had ever loved me that way. But it gave me perspective. What you felt, Jon, it was nothing but--”

“You don’t get to rationalize this,” Jon says. “You don’t get to decide how I feel.”

She gives him another tired look, an even more tired sigh. "You saw my mistakes and you jumped to the worst possible conclusion. I'm sorry for everything I did. I'm sorry for those mistakes. But Jon..." Holding his gaze firmly, she shakes her head before moving to her feet and walking away.

Jon springs up and chases after her. “Sansa. You still don’t understand. I wasn’t done. Please.”

Sansa’s body moves with a heavy breath, but she does turn around and waits for him to continue. Her eyes cut to him as sharp and cool as a blade. He quails beneath that stare. Can’t help it. But she needs to hear this and he forces out the words with his voice gravelly and his eyes trained on the ground.

“My whole life, I’ve known that, no matter how hard I work, no matter how good I become at something, it’ll never be good enough. _I’ll_ never be good enough. I was the shame of my House. The unwanted babe brought home to a wife who was humiliated. Not one day passed that I wasn’t reminded of it. Not one day. What do you think that does to a child?” He squeezes his eyes shut, lets his lashes soak up the tears brimming in his eyes, blinks away the rest. “My whole life, I’ve hated myself. I’ve wished I was never born more times than I can count. Do you think falling in love with you made that easier? I was born of lust and sin. I was _less_. Lewd. Base. You came to me for protection. You told me all the awful things that had happened to you and what did I do? I fell for you. I became one of those very monsters you needed me to protect you from. I’ve never hated myself more. And learning about who I really was didn’t exactly help, did it? Only one thing is worse than being a bastard. At least in the eyes of the North. I was a Targaryen who’d fucked my aunt and loved my sister. I truly was the beast. In love with the perfect princess. Wanting to steal her away to my tower. And when you feel that way about yourself, when you think you’re a fucking monster, then it’s not so easy to believe that someone would love you, is it. Then it's easier to believe they would betray you because it's all you deserve."

Head still bowed, he chances a glance at her. The steel in her gaze has softened. Tears fall from her lashes when she blinks.

“Sansa,” he says, softly, “not even in my wildest dreams would I have thought you were in love with me. You’re clever and strong and brave and kind and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. How could someone like you _ever_ love someone like me?”

“But I did. I did love you.”

“I know that now. But then? You could’ve told me, and I still wouldn’t have believed you. My doubts, they were never about you. Not really. It was about me. How I felt about me. If it makes you feel any better, you weren’t the only person I doubted. I doubted Arya too. And Bran. And Sam. Not as much, no, but when I returned from Dragonstone with Daenerys, the only person who treated me just the same was Tormund. He’s the only person I still felt loved by. And it’s not so difficult to figure out why, is it. Why I never doubted him.”

“He doesn’t care if someone’s a bastard,” she murmurs, wiping away her tears. “But I did. When we were children. I treated you differently. Just like Lady Lora. And you don’t like her.”

“You’re not like her. Not even when we were little. You were--”

“The perfect lady? Has it ever occurred to you that what you think is love is just a need for me to accept you? For the pretty red-haired lady from your childhood to accept you. You wouldn’t be the first person to confuse that with love.”

He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have told you all this, should I.”

“Yes. You should’ve. I needed to know. You should’ve told me this a long time ago, Jon. Before we did all this.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the only one who should’ve been honest from the start.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Sansa. You believed awful things about me too and I don’t let that scare me off. Not anymore. We need to--”

“Maybe you should.” She lets out something between a laugh and a sob. “I did believe awful things about you. And I was reckless. I almost got you killed. I loved nothing in the world more than you and I almost got you killed.” She takes a step back, shaking her head. “We’re really not good for each other, are we. We shouldn’t be together. All we do is hurt each other, even when we don’t mean to.”

“That’s not true. Not anymore. We’re _happy_.” He moves closer, reaches for her before he remembers how she shied away earlier, and lets the gesture die undone. “Let's forget about ‘then.’ We were traumatized, broken children. ‘Then’ doesn’t matter anymore. Think about now. Think about always. I can’t promise it’ll be perfect. I don’t think it will be. And I can’t promise we’ll never fight, because I think we will. At least once or twice." He gives her a lopsided smile. "But I can promise I want nothing more than to make you and Iselinde happy. I can promise that I love you. Deeply. Sometimes even desperately. But I don’t love you foolishly. Not anymore. It’s not foolish to love you.”

For a beat, she just stares at him. Then she draws in a shaky breath, quickly brushing away more tears spilling from her eyes. “You’ve changed. You have. You’re not the same man Tormund dragged to Winterfell a year ago. And now you’ve had some sort of revelation that makes you feel hopeful and I’m happy for you--I am--but, Jon… This is a lot to take in. _A lot_. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t…” The rest of her breath pops from her lips as she looks down at her chest. “I’m leaking.” Two milk-soaked stains grow on the pale wool. “I have to go.”

She’s back in the saddle before he can blink. He watches her gallop off, her hair streaming behind her like a copper river glinting in the sun, arresting his gaze until she's out of sight. Then he returns to the mere where he splashes water on himself like that ruff before settling down by the water’s edge. There he listens to the noises of the burgeoning world and breathes until his mind clears.

The rest of the morning he spends at the mere. Out on a walk with their families, Sam and Drustan bump into him and, by sending Athor to get Wolkan, Jon uses the opportunity to distract himself and let Sansa breathe too by discussing the stud farm and Dragonstone with the men. Together, they settle on a fair price, and he and Drustan shake hands on it. Papers will be drawn. Money will change hands. The island will lose its connection to the Targaryens. Jon even encourages Drustan to change its name. There are no more Dragons and never will be. If he and Sansa ever have more children, they’ll all be Starks.

Despite it all, he returns to Winterfell on light feet and with hope burning strong in his heart. (Even as it hammers in his chest.)

She’s in a clean dress. Same simple cut but the color of pale winter roses instead of stock dove. She’s presentable again, almost severe if not for the soft fabric and the loose bun at the nape of her neck. As they lunch together with their closest guests in the small dining chamber, the children talk about staying at Winterfell for days. They want to play with the wolves and fish at the mere and learn from Meera how to hunt rabbits. Robin Arryn even promises to teach them a bit about falconry. Sansa smiles through all of it, nods her approval when their adult guests start making plans to stay a while longer. She even keeps that smile on her face and says they took a walk, that’s all, when Tormund asks her and Jon with a wide grin and waggling eyebrows where they were this morning. A question that intrigues everyone at the table, and Jon can easily imagine how they all must’ve speculated as they broke their fast without the company of their hosts.

Though, her mood rules her appetite and he knows her too well by now to miss the way she spends more time cutting her food than eating it. Nor does he miss how often she brings a forkful to her mouth only to pause her hand to comment or laugh at something, and then bring the still-full fork back down to the plate when no one’s looking. And when Wolkan enters the room carrying a scroll with the sigil of the Three Eyed Raven, she uses it as an excuse to leave the chamber before she’s as much as unfurled the scroll when she usually skims the scroll at the table so as not to leave her guests so rudely unless absolutely necessary.

When she doesn’t return shortly, Jon follows.

She’s in her office, rubbing her temple with one hand and holding a cup of tea with the other.

“Bad news?” Jon asks.

“Not at all. Bran has a rookery now. He wanted us to know.”

She holds out the scroll; Jon takes it as an invitation to sit and pulls a chair to the desk before skimming through Bran’s neat writing. The window is open, letting in enough light to see--but it lets in noise too. And when the children tumble out in the courtyard with happy shrieks, Sansa jolts and rubs her temple harder, even tips her head back to get every last drop of that tea.

Jon hands back the scroll and closes the shutters.

“You all right?” he asks, quietly.

“I can’t do this with them here. But I can’t exactly ask them to leave either. What kind of hostess would I be? They came all this way… Mother would not approve.” She sighs and leans her head in her hand. “They’re so curious about us and I don’t know… I don’t know, Jon. I’m sorry.”

Jon weighs the scroll in his hand. She told him once that, sometimes, it takes a while to realize you don’t want what you thought you wanted. The opposite is true too, he reckons. Sometimes it takes a while to realize you still want what you thought you didn’t.

“I could, though,” he says. “Leave. I could leave.”

Sansa raises her head slowly, looking at him with knitted brow. Jon sits down opposite her and lays the scroll on her desk.

“What we agreed on,” he says, “have you changed your mind about that? The farm. My living here.”

“I’m not a fickle person, Jon. Winterfell is _ours_. Mine, yours, and Arya’s, if she ever comes home.”

“I’m just making sure.”

“They would wonder. If you left.”

“We’ll tell them Bran needed me. I’ll go back to the valley. Give you some time to take it all in. It might be easier if I’m not here.”

“I can’t ask you to leave again,” she mumbles.

“I’ve been meaning to go back there anyway. I made a few friends who helped me when I struggled. Never really thanked them for it. And, when I left, they thought I’d be coming back. I never said goodbye. I’d like to say goodbye. Get my things. Close that chapter of my life so I can focus fully on this one. On my life _here_. With you and Iselinde. Even if… Regardless of what your answer will be. I belong here now.”

“This is not your running away?”

“I’ll never run away again.”

Her eyes flick up to his, flitting between them. “Drustan is staying. You heard that, didn’t you? He’s staying here for days. You trust him? You seem jealous of him.”

“I am. But I trust _you_. I trust the vows we made.”

Her eyebrows twitch, but she keeps the mask on. “It’s not that I want you gone.”

“I know.”

“I just need to…” She gestures vaguely, hands moving gracefully in the air as she tries and fails to find an ending to that sentence.

“I meant what I said earlier. Take all the time you need. About this too.”

A tremble moves through her bottom lip. She presses her lips together and looks away. 

“If you want me to stay, I’ll stay. The valley isn’t going anywhere. But if you want some space…”

Sansa closes her eyes. Her temple is red from her rubbing. Her breath when she sighs smells of herbs and honey. He sits still and quiet and waits until she nods.

Packing doesn’t take long. He hoists the saddlebags up on his shoulder and heads outside, says goodbye to Sam and the others watching the children play. Sansa and Iselinde and the wolves are waiting for him outside the gates for a private goodbye. Only then, when he sees his family lined up against Winterfell’s walls, does his heart clench painfully. He hugs Iselinde and breathes in her sweet baby scent until his lungs are full of it.

“Take care of your mother for me,” he whispers and kisses her pudgy cheek. Still holding her, he pets Lamb and repeats the request. Then he scratches the ears of every wolf there except Ghost’s mate. Even Shy lets himself be petted.

When he turns to Sansa she is queen again, her hands clasped and her head held high. Her eyes give him nothing and he can’t blame her, really. Regret curls in his belly over all the things he let pour out of him, but she’s right: she needed to know. They can only move forward if they start being honest with one another. And there’s still so much he wants to tell her, there are still things he knows he should share. And he will. Once he returns. They’ll have a whole life together. There’s no rush.

When he hands back the baby Sansa perches on her hip, his eyes drop to her lips without his permission. She remains unmoved. Passive. So he does what he’s done so many times before: cups her cheek and kisses her gently on the forehead, pouring all the love he feels for her into that kiss. Only this time, when he pulls back, she doesn’t look bemused or unaffected like she usually looks but as if the truth finally dawns on her. As if she finally sees those forehead kisses for what they are.

To confirm it, he smiles at her and brushes his fingers along her jawline as he steps away to mount Shadow. This isn’t goodbye, so he doesn’t say it. He only takes them all in before clicking his tongue to make Shadow trot. He doesn’t turn around again until he has to turn onto the Kingsroad, but they’re all still standing there, looking at him riding away. And when he raises his hand in a wave, Sansa looks at him for a beat before bowing her head to Ghost, and telling him something that sends him running after Jon. As if she worries. As if she wants someone to watch over him the way he asked the pack to watch over her, and he knows in his heart it’s not too late for them.

He knows that, sometimes, one has to give the horse time and let it come to you.

* * *

At the hill overlooking the valley tarn, in a bespoke saddle on a black mare with white stockings and a white star between her eyes, sits Bran. The mare’s the same breed as Shadow, stocky and short, and Jon gets a sense of how tall Bran truly must be now. Much taller than him. Maybe as tall as Tormund.

“Hello, Jon.”

“That’s clever.” Jon nods at the saddle and its many straps securing Bran. “Must be nice. To be able to ride.”

“Tyrion gave me the schematics, once. In a different time, he would’ve been my friend. It’s funny how much even the smallest choice can affect the future...” Bran squints at a worksite on the western side of the tarn where a meadow stretches out between the water and the mountains surrounding them. “I hope this one will come to pass.”

When Jon was here last, that meadow held nothing but flowers, rock, and moss. Now a building is slowly rising beneath the hands of men and two giants hauling stone and logs.

A wondrous laugh puffs from Jon’s lips. “I thought they were all gone.”

“Not everyone fled south to escape the Night King. When he grew more powerful, a few of the Children created a barrier between the mountains and the rest of the world. The Others could never pass. But wildlife, giants, Children, and other creatures could. Some life was preserved thanks to the Children. Over the years, wildlife has returned. Giants don’t like change much, though. It took them longer. But now some of them are here, residing in the Iron Mountains once more. Where they belong.”

“Do you know the story about the Iselind? About the giant and the Child of the Forest who loved one another. The Thenns used to tell it, but I never learned the end of it.”

“I know someone who does.” Bran gives him a smile--or the closest he ever comes to smiling nowadays anyway. “Come. Let’s eat.”

* * *

When Jon rode along the Iselind, snow still lingered on the ground, safe in the cool shadow of the mountains. In Korpsilmae Valley, however, spring stands in full bloom--and the godswood is blossoming brighter and lusher even than Winterfell’s godswood, as if summer has already come to this particular part of the valley. Fat bumblebees crawl into the cups of bluebells and tumble drunkenly out to swoop to the next flower, and butterflies the color of chestnut, bark, and copper flutter between flowers unfamiliar to Jon. Some carpet the ground like a thousand pale stars against a dark mossy expanse. Others stretch toward the sky and sway gently in the breeze. All of them seem impossible at this time of year.

If only Sansa could see this. An enchanted garden he doesn’t have the words to describe (nor the skill to do justice with pen and paper, even if he does enjoy sketching sometimes in his notebook). If only he could bring a piece of it with him to show her until she can come to see it herself...

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Our godswood,” Bran says. “The Children tend to it. In the true tongue, they call themselves _Those who sing the song of earth._ Now that the Night King is gone and the earth unfrozen, they can finally sing again.”

Like last time, they’re shy. Jon only catches glimpses between branches and bushes of leaf-adorned hair or green eyes or dirt-smeared cheeks that reminds him of a messy little child who was equally good at hiding.

“Do you know anything about Arya?” Jon asks. “I’m worried about her. Sansa gets ravens sometimes, when someone’s seen her, but we’ve not gotten one in months, now.”

“Arya doesn’t want me to watch her. My greenseers see things sometimes, though. Last time we saw each other, she was still running away from the demons chasing her. She’ll return once she’s ready to face them. Or so their dreams would lead me to believe.”

“I hope you’re right. I want her to meet Iselinde. She doesn’t even know she has a niece. She can’t know. She would come home if she knew. Unless… Do you think she…?”

“Finds you and Sansa repelling? I don’t know. It's always possible.” Bran looks up at Jon with an expression so blank he looks like an innocent boy. “I’d like to meet Iselinde. We have a thing or two in common.”

“She’s a warg, isn’t she?”

“We’re all wargs, Jon. You never learned how to control it, that’s all.”

“I don’t want to anymore. Walking in my own skin is more than enough. And”, Jon says, scratching Ghost’s good ear, “I doubt Ghost would appreciate it--and I know his mate wouldn’t.”

“I’m glad he came. The Children would like to meet him. Red eyes mean you’re chosen by the gods. They think he’s sacred. Like the weirwoods are sacred. And the hwydulvar wyrt.”

“The what?”

“I’ll show you.”

After, Bran leads Jon to a balcony hewn directly from the cliff overlooking the rest of the valleys and mountains between them and the Shivering Sea. There, a rustic oak table with a healthy spread of food awaits them along with Bran’s closest friends. Jon remembers the three Eyes from his time here, the two boys Ronne took to the valley and the spindly girl who arrived the day he learned about the pregnancy. But the rest are new to him. Directly on the ground sits Nor Weg Nar, queen of the remaining giants, her beard so long it drapes over her knees like a silver skirt. And surrounding her are four Children of the Forest. They have no king or queen, but the oldest of them is called Mossroot and he’s the only one whose name Jon gets.

There are no servants, though, and every person tends to their own needs. Jon fills a bowl of the reindeer stew he grew fond of during his time here, and nicks himself some of the hard bread too. Noreg, as the Queen is called by her friends, eats two whole goats by herself. The Eyes eat like most human folk, and the Children feast on grilled squirrel and roasted nuts and leafy greens. But despite the bountiful table, Bran only drinks from his cup which holds something rich and red and far too thin to be wine. In fact, it almost looks like...

“It’s blood,” Bran says as if he could read Jon's mind. “I drink blood now.”

Staring at Jon over the rim, Bran brings the cup back to his lips for a deep mouthful and a shiver runs down Jon’s spine. Bran had had a ceremony, he said, implying he’d live for a long, long time--

“It’s sap,” Mossroot says. “From the heart-tree.”

"It's a sort of blood." Bran takes another sip.

Jon blinks. The smallest smile bends Bran's lips. Jon lifts one corner of his mouth in a grin and raises his horn of ale in honor to Bran. For he still is. Aye, he drinks tree blood and wears the skin of beasts and sees time flowing before him and behind him, but some part of him is Bran Stark still. And Jon wishes Sansa was here for this too. He wishes she was here to hear Mossroot and Noreg tell him the ending to the tale of Isern and Lind. He wishes she was here to see the Children, with awe in their gold-green eyes, approach Ghost slowly, slowly, until they're brave enough to touch his snow-white fur and whisper secrets and prayers into his ears. He wishes she was here to hear them weave songs with voices like spun silver and gold, and casting them over the world as if the very wind had learned to sing in the true tongue.

He’s so used to having her by his side, he keeps turning to his right to comment on something or other or just share a smile before he realizes. His heart aches with longing for her. His mate. Soon, he'll return to her; first, he must gather his things and say goodbye to his friends.

His old corner stands the way he left it. Someone has kept it dusted and clean, that’s all. The tools lie by his seldom used pallet. He doesn’t need them anymore, but they’re good beginner’s tools and if he and Sansa have a son one day, he can teach that boy how to build the way Almer taught him with those very tools. He finds her letters too. Both the ones she sent and the scrolls Ronne found. Jon wraps them gently and tucks them into his saddlebags. He keeps a couple of books, some knick-knacks he’s gathered, some gifts he’s received, and heads out to find Ronne and give him the rest to be handed out to whomever needs it.

He’s by the tuber patch, Ronne, where he flirts with a big-bottomed woman with dirt on the knees of her skirt and a trowel in her robust hand.

“Ah, Jon the builder.” Smiling, Ronne lets the woman return to her work. “I did hear some whispers about you riding through our settlement.”

“Not Jon the Builder anymore,” Jon says, smiling too. “I’m just Jon Snow.”

“I see. I take it you’re not returning to the nest, then.”

Jon imagines there’s a disappointed note in Ronne’s voice, but the man still smiles and even puts his arm around Jon’s shoulders as they head up the path to the training grounds to steal Dareh away for a few hours. 

Jon stays until the sky darkens. But once the valley folks gather around the pavilion for that night’s stories and songs, Winterfell's tug on his heart grows too strong to ignore. As if he feels it too, Ghost even pads off toward the mouth of the tunnel leading outside. Aye, it’s late and they’ll have to navigate the mountains by moonlight and starlight and wolf sight, but Jon won’t be able to sleep knowing it’ll mean yet another day away from his daughter and the woman he loves.

Ronne soon catches up to him and they walk abreast in silence. 

“Will we ever see you again?” Ronne asks once they've reached the tunnel.

Jon nods, looking out over the valley. “You asked me once what I was running from.”

“A woman, if memory serves.”

“Aye, that’s what I said. But I wasn’t, really. I was running from myself. From how I felt. It was my biggest shame, loving her. Even worse than being a bastard. Worse than being a Targaryen.” He laughs through his nose, quick and self-deprecating. “Worse _because_ I was those things. I loved her against my will and I wouldn’t allow myself to enjoy how happy she made me. But now… I’m not ashamed anymore. I can’t imagine anyone better to love--and I'm finally ready to show her just how much.”

Ronne smiles at that, big and wide, and Jon smiles too.

“Aye, you’ll see me again,” Jon says. “And next time, I’m bringing my family.”

Darkness rests over the valley like a blanket held up by countless torches whose flames move in the breeze like the flowers in the godswood. Up here, high above the world, safe behind craggy mountains, his poorly healed wounds always hurt a bit less. Up here the demons lurking in the shadows of every corner at Winterfell couldn’t find him. Hiding here for a spell was a sweet thing. 

But he can’t be the beast that snarls and growls and pretends to fall asleep when things become uncomfortable anymore. He’s done running, done hiding. Something sweeter still waits for him at home, something that chases away what lurks in the shadows if only he lets it. It's time he did.

With the reins in his hands, he leads his horse and his wolf into the dark so they can come out on the other side and finally return to their pack for good.

* * *

* * *

“He’s on his way back.” Sansa carefully rolls the scroll from Bran back up and lays it on the table. “Shouldn’t take too many days now that there’s no snow.”

“Have you decided yet?” Meera asks, stroking her son’s back as he sleeps against her with his arms around her neck. “What you’ll do.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would’ve knocked some sense into him ages ago.”

“Would you really have?” Sansa smiles, close-lipped.

Meera twists her mouth as she thinks before admitting, with a slight blush to her cheeks, “No, I suppose I wouldn’t have. But I would’ve muttered a lot under my breath.”

Sansa laughs. “I’ve done my fair share of that.”

“What do you _want_ , then?”

Sometimes Sansa thinks they’re too broken, the edge of every fracture all jagged and sharp. How could they do anything but cut each other when they interact? Yes, with time and effort they could sand down those edges until they’re as smooth as pebbles on the beach, but would they? Would they really? Jon talked about listening to his heart. But their hearts are susceptible to wishful thinking, to believing love is enough when it's not. She knows better than to listen to her heart when sense rules her head.

She’s spent every free moment examining the things Jon said, and at the end of the day, she’s still can't help but suspect he sees her as the perfect princess who’ll transform him from a beast to a prince with a kiss. That he’ll have it all, then. The pretty lady wife, the beautiful family, the Winterfell of his childhood... A pretty dream, granted, but dreams aren't real and she's not that girl anymore.

“Littlefinger once told me that to win you have to take risks. And by taking risks that means sometimes you’ll lose--you might even lose big. And if I listen to my head--”

“I know you listen to your head," Meera says. "And I know what your head thinks, because you've told me over and over. _I_ once told you you need to listen to your gut. You’ve got good instincts.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“You just need to learn to listen to them. What does your gut tell you?”

“My gut?” Sansa spreads her hand over her stomach as if she can feel her instincts whispering through her skin. “My gut doesn’t feel it. I hear what he’s saying. And I understand it, but as long as I don’t _feel_ that he’s in love with me… I’m better off listening to my head. And my head tells me one honest conversation isn’t enough. If we’re going to share a life... What if I give him what he wants and he stops trying and takes me for granted again? Littlefinger wasn’t wrong about everything. If Jon breaks my heart again…” She shakes her head, wrapping an arm around her body. “It’s not just me now. If I ruin my relationship with Iselinde’s father… No. It’s too big a risk. I’ll tell him no.” 

Sansa sends a raven to Castle Black and asks them to notify her one when Jon passes through. On a misty morning that smells of bread, she gets her reply. By then Sansa is alone. Meera, Drustan, Robin, and Brienne have returned home while Tormund has brought the Tarlys with him to Stonedoor where Gilly will try to find her sisters or aunts. It leaves Sansa with plenty of time to prepare. 

Normally, he’d want a bath first thing, but now he’ll want to see Iselinde. He’ll want food too. She has the kitchen prepare his favorite dishes, and tells the steward to make sure a bath is ready three quarters of an hour after Jon has returned. That should be sufficient. He’ll get to cuddle his daughter, eat, and receive the rejection. Then he can retreat to the bath. He’ll appreciate that. Some time to himself. To think over her words. He might even understand that she’s right. 

They’re grown now and far too sensible to risk the sustainable life they have for the chance of something that rarely exists outside of songs and stories. What they have is good enough and far better than what most are allotted.

Yes. She nods to herself. This is what’s best for their family.

She dismisses her handmaidens, cancels her meetings, spends her day practicing what to say (and jolts every time she hears a horse whinny or a door open and close). Then night falls and, as if she knows (or as if her mother’s nervous energy is contagious), Iselinde won’t fall asleep at her usual hour. She’s calm, though, lying on her blanket and kicking her feet and twisting her hands in the amber fur of the wolf wrapped around her. No matter whether Iselinde accidentally kicks her on the nose or pokes a finger into her eye, Lamb lies still and gentle. So when she finally rises with her ears perked and tail wagging happily long before Sansa hears any footfalls herself, Sansa knows.

A strange sort of calm settles over her. She is prepared. Polished. Her dress smooth, her braid neat. She doesn’t bite her lip or pinch her cheeks for color, only picks up their daughter and waits.

He knocks now. That’s new. After he caught her he knocked too. And he’ll continue to now, Sansa supposes.

The wolf is a blessed creature. Awkwardness never has a chance to build for the moment the door opens, Lamb throws herself at Jon and showers him with such affection he falls to his knees with a chuckle. After days and days on horseback, he’s tan and bushy-bearded. He smells like horse and leather and sun-warm skin. He smells like Jon. Their eyes meet as he rises. Her stomach flips. But then his gaze drops and he has eyes only for his daughter. Sansa exhales her relief as Jon scoops up Iselinde in his arms and cuddles her close while dropping a thousand kisses to her cheeks, nose, and downy head.

“I missed you, sweet girl,” he whispers. “It was difficult to sleep without my girl holding papa’s finger.”

“She found it difficult to sleep too,” Sansa says. 

“Yeah?” Jon holds the baby in front of him, smiling wetly as Iselinde pats his beard with such focus her eyes cross. “Did she adjust?”

“Yes.” Sansa holds her head a touch higher. “She adjusted.”

“Good. I think I should move back into my old chamber. For now.”

Sansa manages to close her mouth before he noticed it dropping open. When he looks at her, she wears her composure as a smile and nods her confirmation. Then she leads him to the divan and the food waiting for him. Jon lights up at that, and as he digs in, Sansa waits and waits for him to ask her. Yes or no. A simple question. But Jon just keeps talking about the valley, about his friends and Bran and Arya and giants and the Children and their magic, and does so in spirits so good it’s almost insulting when her nerves are so frayed she could scream.

He’s different. Lighter. But then she remembers the relief that followed her confession, as if she’d worn her resentment, heartache, and pain like a too-tight corset and finally could breathe when she took it off. She remembers him too. How controlled he was, still tightly wrapped in his own armor the way she is now, when the guilt over the pain she caused him has laced that corset back on. It fits well, though. Reminds her to keep her posture and her resolve.

“Sansa?” His voice breaks through her thoughts, pulls her focus back to him. “Are you all right?”

“It’s late. I’m a bit tired.”

“Yeah.” He gazes down at their daughter, who’s fallen asleep in her father’s lap. “Long past our usual bedtime. Thank you for staying up. And for the food.”

“Of course.” _Tell him._ “I thought you’d like it.” _Just tell him._ “And a bath. There is one waiting for you.”

That brings a smile back to his lips. “You’re good to me,” he murmurs and she averts her eyes before she drowns in the warmth of his. “I have something for you.”

When she looks back up, the color of his cheeks have deepened a bit. After wiping his hands on his breeches instead of the napkin waiting on the tray, he lays the sleeping Iselinde down on her blanket with Lamb, and brings the saddlebags he dumped at the door to the divan. There he gingerly pulls out a bundle of burlap and, after sweeping plates aside, places it on the table and starts unwrapping it. Clumps of dirt fall out. A petal follows. Then a muttered curse and a sparse-woven dome of twigs he removes before stepping aside.

In a patch of soil, a cluster of flowers grows, impossibly. Some are small, others larger. Some are pale, others vibrant. And they all surround an orchid only a little taller than the length of her hand. Its petals are white as snow. The lip is almost snout-like, its tip dipped in red like a wolf’s muzzle after a fresh kill. And on the petals on either side of the lip, a smattering of red markings takes the shapes of something almost eye-like.

“It looks like Ghost,” she whispers.

“I know.” Jon smiles. “It’s a hwydulvar wyrt. Or a white wolf orchid. It’s sacred.”

“And you _took_ it?” she gaps out, hand to her chest.

Jon laughs. “I got permission.”

Sansa brushes the soft pale petals. “How are they alive?”

“The Children. Mossroot sang over them. There’s magic in their songs. He says they’ll last for a few weeks. But you can plant them in the godswood, if you like. He said they’ll grow well.”

“You gave me _magical_ flowers?”

“For your embroidery. Your nameday dress. You wanted northern flowers and these are as northern as they come. Can’t find them anywhere else.”

Sansa’s lashes flutter over her stinging eyes. She keeps them on the flowers rather than the man gifting them to her lest she loses control. The orchid truly looks like Ghost, like a fierce beast dripping with blood, but it smells sweet and lovely like wild strawberries.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “They’re beautiful.”

“You’re welcome.” Jon shoulders the saddlebags. “Well, I’m gonna…”

He moves to the door to get that bath. A bath before bed. His own bed. He’ll sleep in his own bed from now on. No. _For now_ , he said. Until she, what, has an answer for him? 

_Tell him._

“Jon!”

He turns around, halfway through the door.

_Tell him._

She licks her lips and parts them. It’s better this way. What they have is too precious. She can gamble neither that nor her heart. Even if he brings her a thousand magical flowers.

_Tell him._

She draws a breath and speaks.

“It’s good to have you home.”

Her stomach lurches when she hears her own words, but if Jon notices he doesn’t let on. He only smiles softly at her.

“I missed you, Sansa,” he says, softer still, her name so gently said it leaves her blushing from head to toe.

When he closes the door behind him, Sansa sinks down on the divan with a rush of breath. Iselinde sleeps on. Lamb’s eyes have slid shut too. The orchid fills the room with the scent of lazy summer days when she’s learned well that most sweet things are poisonous. 

Gifts rarely come without something attached. An apology, a price, an expectation. If a gift is given by a man to a woman he claims to love and the gift is one of the most rare flowers in the whole world… Then it carries expectations, yes, but a promise too. A promise of intent and things to come. 

Jon isn’t like that, though. He’s always scoffed at romance and silly dreams. He’s a practical man. His proposal proved that, if anything.

Not that courting can’t be practical. It is. When one needs to determine whether or not a match is reasonable and prudent and solid. But Jon and Sansa already know one another. They've shown each other their scars and their broken hearts. They’ve shared a life and a bed. They have a child together for goodness’ sake. After all that, courtship is hardly needed. 

After all that, Jon wouldn’t court her. 

Carefully, she lifts the gift to the mantelpiece and puts the dome back on so that neither baby nor wolf can get to it and breathes in that scent of childhood days when she still was a silly girl who believed in love and romance and gallant knights who loved without ulterior motives.

He wouldn’t court her regardless.

She puts a hand to her racing heart and eases out a breath.

Would he?


	28. A Sky Full of Stars

Cutlery clinks against polished silver plates. The crisp crust of a heel of bread crunches between teeth. Crumbs fall to the linen-draped table. Strips of toast dip into a runny yolk with wet glops. A sigh fills the room like the wind fills a canyon. 

It’s her own, she realizes, when Jon looks up at her. Their eyes meet. A smile warms his. She turns hers to the tapestry behind him. As a child she’d often look at those wolves of cotton and wool. The leaders were Mother and Father, of course, and the smaller wolves Robb, her, Arya, and Bran. Rickon wasn’t born yet and Jon… Well, Jon didn’t count, then. He wasn’t a trueborn Stark.

She did notice his leaving Winterfell that day so long ago, now, but she can’t blame him for assuming she wouldn’t. She struggled to fit a bastard half-brother into the world she was so meticulously taught to handle by her mother and septa. She had rules and codes of conduct for everything but Jon. Looking at her parents didn’t help much. Her father loved him enough to raise him, that’s true, but he didn’t treat him like a son; her mother ignored him entirely. She wouldn’t even call him by his name. All Sansa was left with was general politeness and silence. It’s all she’s left with now, when she doesn’t know what they are anymore or how it fits into the life she’s built.

He too is silent. Yesterday, on their usual wolfwalk at noon, they merely stammered out something about the weather before slipping back into a silence much more comfortable than awkward pleasantries.

She almost misses their fights. They were easier than whatever this is. She might’ve believed for a moment the flowers would change something, but he only seems to wait, doesn’t he? For her to come to him as if a confession and some flowers is all it takes when she--

“I was wondering…”

She jolts at the sound of his voice, eyes cutting to him. He’s staring at the table, pink-cheeked.

He clears his throat and tries again. “Would you like to join me for a walk? This afternoon. Promised Oskar we’ll eat together today, but I’ll be in the courtyard about an hour after lunch.”

“You don’t have to ask me, Jon. We’ll still take our walks. That doesn’t have to change just because we no longer share-- Just because our days look different now.”

Jon’s already pink cheeks deepen in color. “No, I meant… Just the two of us. Alone.”

Chin dipped, he looks up at her with wide eyes while he waits for her reply, and the question his actions raised the other day transforms into a seed of hope after all.

It’s too early to plant it, though. For now she’ll merely keep it safe and hidden, and accepts his invitation with a nod of her head. 

* * *

The courtyard sings with the good mood of servants and workers enjoying that perfect pocket of time between winter cold and summer heat. The ground underfoot is solid and dry, the sun overhead a benevolent warmth, and the air all around them fragrant and mild. A good day for a stroll. 

A good day for a stroll with a man who, unlike the Jon she usually meets in the afternoon when he comes straight from work in clothes that smell of horse and skin that smells of white soap from a quick wash, wears fine garments of soot-gray wool and linen beneath a black leather jerkin.

Sansa smooths a self-conscious hand down the bodice of her plain dress. “You look very handsome.” It comes out more as an accusation than a compliment. Her cheeks prickle with heat. “Do I need to change?”

“You don’t need to. But, if you want to, I’ll wait.”

She gives him another once-over. His dark hair is pulled back in a neat bun. His trimmed beard frames a warm smile. Longclaw hangs from his left hip, and the end of his sword-belt falls down his right thigh, together framing parts of him at which she should not be staring.

Licking her lips, Sansa looks away and shakes her head. When she looks back at him, he offers her his arm to lean on. The linen strains over the swell of his upper arm. Her bed has felt so empty without him. _She_ has felt empty. It’s been so long since they…

_No. Those are dangerous thoughts to indulge in._

She rejects the offer with a shake of her head and heads toward the gates. Shy and Fox follow them today. Trailing many paces behind on paws as silent as Jon and Sansa’s lips, they move over fields of bushy green grass dotted with a thousand bright dandelions. Arya loved them, she remembers, and would get angry when Sansa pointed out they’re weeds. "Maybe weeds can be pretty too!" she'd yell, her dirty little face scrunched up. Sansa only liked them once they turned into fluffy seed puffs. Then she would pick one, whisper a wish against that soft, soft ball, and blow the seeds into the wind so they would carry that wish to the gods.

“Do you remember,” Sansa says, “when I tried to teach Rickon how to blow on a dandelion puff. Only he inhaled instead and got his whole mouth full and he coughed and coughed and Arya laughed until she wet herself.”

Jon laughs at that. “Aye, I remember. Jeyne called her the little pissant a whole month after that.”

“Did she? She never said that in front of me.”

“No, of course not. But I didn’t count as a proper Stark. I heard her say worse.”

There’s no edge in his tone. No bitterness. He’s merely stating a fact. And yet Sansa can’t help but blush with shame at his words.

“You grew up in a different Winterfell than I did," she says. "I never quite realized that when we were little. Even though I…”

“Didn’t count me as a proper Stark either?”

“I do now.”

“I know,” he says. “And it was still a good Winterfell, Sansa. I was luckier than most. Still am.”

“Do you feel like a proper Stark now?”

Jon exhales, squinting out over the landscape as if he can find the answer in the tussocky field. “I don’t think I ever will. It matters less now, though.” He gives her a crooked smile, a crooked shrug, all charming and care-free. “I don’t mind being Jon Snow.”

Out here, with no wind to speak of and no tall trees blotting out the sun, they soon grow flushed and thirsty. But a stone’s throw away, a copse stands like an oasis. There they find a brook purling over smooth stones and cup their hands to drink. Refreshed, Sansa settles down in the shade of a fat beech and exhales her satisfaction.

“It’s very warm today,” she says, lifting her braid to place a cool hand on her neck.

“Aye, summer is near.”

Jon unlaces his jerkin and loosens the laces at the neck of his tunic, baring a sliver of chest. Once more her thoughts race to places they should not race. She looks away, warm-cheeked and thirsty again.

“You should take off your boots, Sansa. It’ll help.” He gestures at the brook. “You could even cool them off in… Huh.” A smile lights up his face. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

With the ease of a shadowcat, he leaps over the brook and disappears behind an old oak. Boots on, Sansa watches Shy and Fox playing at the edge of the copse like two pups and tries to relax. It _is_ warm today, and she’s used to paths well-trodden or even stone-paved, but it’s not the exercise that has her blushing. It’s not the exercise that has her heart beating a little faster when she sees him returning with one hand behind his back and a poorly hidden smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Do you need help with your boots? You still look flushed.”

“I’m fine.” She narrows her eyes at him. “What are you hiding?”

He drops to his knees and, from behind his back, pulls out a bouquet as bright yellow as the daffodils. These, though, are long and elegant with a cluster of flowers growing on each stem, their petals a whorl around the cup-like center, like golden beams fanning out from the sun. 

“Jonquils,” she whispers, gazing down at the gift now in her hands. “You found jonquils.”

“I wasn’t sure whether you liked the flower too, but I know you loved the song."

“I do. I can’t believe you remembered.”

Jon settles down next to her and looks up at the tree-crown sheltering them from the sun. “You used to sing it. When you brushed Lady’s coat. It was nice.”

“I didn’t know you noticed that.”

He turns his head, then, and looks at her. “Just because you didn’t pay attention to me, it doesn’t mean I didn’t notice things about you.”

“I wish I had. Paid attention. I wish I’d treated you the way I treated Robb.”

“I don’t. Aye, it hurt sometimes. It did. But I’m glad you never saw me as a brother. If you had, it’s all I ever would’ve been to you and I don’t want that.” Jon holds her gaze steadily. “When Sam told me who I really am, it felt like my whole world shattered. All I’ve ever wanted was to be Ned Stark’s trueborn son. But now… I’m relieved I’m not. If I were, I couldn’t be with you.”

Her eyes prickle with tears; she looks down, blinking and blinking until they disappear. This earnestness of his is too new, still. Overwhelming. Intimidating. 

“Do I make you uncomfortable,” he asks, quietly.

“I’m not used to you speaking this frankly,” she says, staring at the flowers. “I’m not used to you looking at me like…”

“Like I love you?”

She blushes at that too, her heart fluttering in her chest.

“I’ve spent such a long time hiding how I feel about you, Sansa, and I don’t want to hide it anymore. I don’t. Unless…” He’s quiet for long enough she glances at him through the corner of her eyes, but the unabashed longing in his makes her return her attention to the flowers. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

They’re huddled so close together, those flowers, like maidens in their pretty skirts whispering and gossiping at a feast about all the handsome boys with whom they'd love to dance. By whom they'd love to be courted.

“Not hiding it," she says, "does that mean flowers?”

“If you like. You do seem to love them. More than ever. You always wear flowers now. On your dresses and”--he pinches off a flower and tucks it behind her ear--”in your hair.”

They’ve left their teen years behind, are closer to thirty than twenty, even, and yet they both blush like maids. His fingers linger at her jawline, a touch more gentle than the petals brushing her cheekbone. His lips, full and soft, curve into a hint of a smile. He tilts his head, leans in a fraction…

Once upon a time, when she was a little dove trapped in the lion’s den and a no from her lipsmeant pain and punishment, she learned how to stay passive even when her head and her gut and her heart all cried out. (Especially then.) In the years that followed, she stayed passive to survive. The men around her all took that as her permission. Now, though, she stays passive because she’s too afraid to give it. She’s too afraid to say yes. That little seed is so frail and small. It’s the only seed she has and if she plants it too soon...

Jon’s gaze sweeps over her face. Then he pulls back and stares up at the crown above once more. A breeze comes then, blessedly, and moves through the copse and lets it breathe. She fills her lungs with it and speaks to stave off the silence.

“That first year, winter was very cold and Winterfell was crowded. It didn’t matter how many people came for help. I opened the gates for all and fed them as best as I could. It was hard. Really hard.”

After inviting Daenerys and her dragons and her armies to stay at Winterfell, after a battle that destroyed some of their stores, and after begrudgingly gifting half of what they had left to the Dragon Queen when she went south again so she could feed herself and her own, they had little food left. Even with rationing, even with men heading out daily to hunt and fish, they rarely returned with much and what they had dwindled too quickly. 

After a few months they survived off bark bread, withered apples, and soup made from the last of the barley, dried fish, and what they could grow in the glass gardens.

“I sent ravens south, but everyone was struggling. Daenerys had burned most of the food from the Reach even before winter came. And everything that was stored in King’s Landing… Well, she burned that too when she burned the city. No one had anything to spare. I scrounged up what precious gems and metals I had and sent a ship to Essos to trade, but it never returned. We lost a lot of people. Those who were old and frail… We lost a lot.” 

When it first started thawing, they dared not believe it. Westerosi winters last for years not months. Spring drawing her warm fingers across the North, tempting them to come out from their hibernation, seemed a mirage. The elders still with them spoke of false spring and second winter, and called it a seduction. Warned them to act too soon. If the snow melted and the cold returned, the soil would freeze and the unprotected seedlings would suffocate or die from frost--and they didn’t have much seed left.

On the other hand, if they waited too long to sow the lands…

She sent Bran three ravens that never returned either before she gave up. (Months later, when she finally saw him again, she learned he’d never gotten those ravens for hungry people had shot them from the sky to eat.) She had to make a decision herself.

“It was something Bran had said before he left. That the seasons had moved like glaciers as long as the Night King lived, as if he’d frozen time too, and that his death meant seasons would flow like the river, like they had at the dawn of time. So I took a chance.”

When the seeds finally sprouted, the snow returned. It fell heavily all night. Guilt kept her at the window where she watched the snowflakes mock her. Grumbles groaned through the castle; she did her best to ignore them. She still sent men out daily to hunt, and women to forage. Even took a basket herself and marched out with a confidence she didn't feel to boost morale. Whatever they could find was better than nothing. The heart-tree was visited so often the path was a streak of muddy brown among all the snow.

“I prayed too,” she says, “even though I didn’t believe in the gods. For a week, the snow stayed. And then spring returned and melted it all away. The snow had protected the seedlings from the cold and our crops grew. We all still held our breath, though. We dared not celebrate. Not until the cherry-trees in the godswood bloomed.”

They did celebrate, then. She had tables carried out on the fields outside Winterfell and decorated with flowers and greenery, and served food she once would’ve called paltry but now seemed a splendid feast. Lutes and reed flutes were found. Music filled the air, and they danced and ate and drank until dawn.

“The people gave me a flower crown and called me Queen of Spring and said my faith had brought back spring and made it stay. It wasn’t true. Arya killed the Night King. But she wasn’t here and they needed someone to thank. So they thanked me and it felt good. Even though I knew it wasn’t true. It felt good to be appreciated for once and it was the first day since becoming queen when I didn’t feel so… _lonely_. For a moment, I forgot I was. It wasn’t until someone asked me something--I can’t even remember what anymore--and I turned to you so we could answer together that I realized. You weren’t there. I suppose I had felt so relaxed, so happy, I just assumed you were because I only ever felt that way when…”

Old hurts seize her throat and she leaves the rest of that sentence unsaid.

“That’s why I wear flowers,” she says, instead. "They don’t call me Queen of Spring anymore, but the flowers remind me of who I want to be as a queen. They remind me not to take good things for granted. To appreciate what I have. And they're pretty too of course. They make me feel pretty. I'm not going to pretend they don't."

“I wish I had been there,” Jon says, hoarsely. “I should’ve been there.”

“You needed to heal.”

“I was selfish.”

“Sometimes we need to be. I’ve been selfish too.”

“Will you let me apologize?” he says and she hears the smile in his voice. “I’m sorry, Sansa. I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you sooner. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when you needed me. I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you deserved.”

Her eyes burn and she turns her head away from him to let her tears soothe them in peace.

“I won’t repeat those mistakes," he says. "I _promise_.”

Discreetly, she brushes away her tears and turns her attention back to him and the feelings he now wears so plainly. So easily. His eyes shine with it, the way he feels. They shine with so much love and longing it fills her like wine until her head swims.

_“You made me dizzy. You still do.”_

A tremulous breath escapes her. Jon’s attention moves to her lips and suddenly, before she’s even aware of moving, she’s on her feet. 

They walk back to Winterfell in silence, side by side. Once, her hand brushes his and her stomach flips. She moves the bouquet to that hand and tucks it to her chest. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his breeches.

The next day payment comes from the south. Suddenly, Jon is a rich man. He spends the day working. He needs men and material. She barely sees him all day. But the following day, he rides out early and returns for breakfast with his saddlebags full of jonquils, bulbs and all, and suggests they plant them in the godswood along with the valley flowers.

While the delicate white wolf orchid gets a home in the shelter of the glass gardens, they bring the rest of the flowers to their linden tree. Sansa spreads the heart-tree blanket over the ground and tells Lamb to keep an eye on Iselinde, who lies there on her belly and watches her mother and father work.

Soon Sansa’s hands are dirty, soil thick beneath each fingernail and skin uncomfortably dry, and both her knees and back ache. But when she sits back and sees the unbroken ring of flowers growing around the linden tree, those aches feel nothing but sweet. In some ways, the man by her side has been her husband ever since he took her under his protection by hanging his cloak over her shoulders, sharing an ale with her, and offering his lap for her to lay all her troubles. But it was here, at this heart-tree, that they promised one another forever--and that flower ring marks the tree as theirs just as much as the carved face does.

It's _their_ heart-tree. His and hers and Iselinde's.

Even as she sighs with contentment, though, she doesn't lean into him and he doesn't pull her close. But his hand lies between them and it feels like an invitation. It’s so warm she can feel it even through the linen of her skirts. Her silly heart, so susceptible to wishful thinking, whispers to her to take his hand and call him husband for true. To take a chance and plant that little seed of hope along with the flowers and let it grow tall and strong like the linden tree.

But that spring, when she took a chance, she had to act or people would die. She didn't have the luxury of sitting by the window and waiting for spring to burst into full bloom. But no one will die if she holds onto this seed for a moment longer. She can wait. (And if it turns out he can't, she'll only be grateful for her prudence.)

* * *

He invites her on more walks, just the two of them. They explore the grounds around Winterfell in a way she never has--not even as a little girl when she mostly stayed within the castle walls--and she finds new spots to love. A lilypad-covered pond with dragonflies darting to and fro. A mighty spruce fallen across a stream, right at a small waterfall, where they can dangle their legs and feel droplets spray up on their ankles. An ivy-draped oak with an old swing that still holds and inspires Jon to put up a swing in the godswood for when Iselinde is older.

"If even you, a woman grown, enjoys it so much," he says, grinning at her as she swings, "then a child must _love_ it."

Even though she’s not asked him to stop, he’s less frank about his feelings. They talk mostly of their work and she likes it. When they shared a chamber, they had so much time together to talk about everything and nothing, and some nights whispered into the dark about their day until their eyelids drooped. 

She’s missed that. Sharing the mundane with someone.

(Sharing the mundane with _him_.)

His gaze is still earnest, though. Often, she catches him admiring her and he never looks away anymore when she does. (She can’t help but wonder how often he's watched her in secret the way she’s watched him. How often he’s schooled his features to ensure she wouldn’t know his heart the way she's schooled hers.) One day, when he invites her and Iselinde to lunch with him at the mere and she dozes off on soft cushions spread over the ground while nursing their daughter, Sansa wakes to find him sketching in his notebook. Sketching her, she thinks, but she doesn’t ask. If he wants her to see, he'll show her.

He still gives her flowers, too. Every day. They brighten her office during long, boring work hours and, at the end of those tiring days, they help her unwind. She lays them out on the desk, examines them carefully, picks out her favorites, and presses them between parchment to keep. Once she's done, her Queen's face has slipped off so easily she never even noticed. She's all Sansa again.

Yes, every day he gives her flowers, and every day she wonders whether this will be the last bouquet.

For, every day, she rejects the hand or arm he proffers. Every day, she remains plainly dressed even though he takes care to look good for her.

Oh, he takes those rejections gracefully--he does--but she knows it can't last.

Other men might've taken her passiveness as yes, but Jon isn't like other men. He doesn't lean in closer closer closer and kiss her cold, unmoving lips. He doesn't let his hands grow bold and explore her stiff body. He doesn't wrap a possessive arm around her just to show everyone to whom she belongs. He doesn't cross any lines at all.

(Sometimes she wishes he would.)

No, it can't last. She's not a naive little girl anymore. Sooner or later he will want his reward for his good behavior or he'll grow tired of spoiling her with attention and walks and flowers and mereside lunches under the sun.

She remembers the man she was intimate with who hungered for her validation. _Kiss me. Want me. Love me._ Tell _me_. The bastard craving the acceptance and admiration of the perfect lady.

 _He's not like that_ , a voice inside her whispers. _That's your fears playing tricks on you._

 _But what if he is_ , another replies.

She can no longer tell which voice belongs to her heart or her head or her gut. But as long as they're in disagreement, her passiveness stays.

It doesn't take long for the good behavior to cease.

For three days he’s _strange_. Away a lot. Misses several meals. He's always nice and warm when they do interact, granted, but becomes vague whenever she asks him about his day. “Just work,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, and she thanks her prudence (and ignores the twinge in her heart).

It took him a week to give up--that’s how shallow his feelings ran--and now he’s running away again. Not physically, of course, he’s never running away again, he said, but he’s fleeing into his work so she flees into hers and it feels like a comfort.

They _are_ comfortable this way. Living together, parenting together, without actually being _together_.

The ache in her heart will pass. She never planted that seed, after all. She doesn’t have to pull it out root and stem. She can keep it nestled to her chest until it dries and crumbles--

A knock on the door puts a well-needed end to her maudlin thoughts. A raven, she thinks. She’s seen little of Wolkan the past few days. He’s dropped off scrolls in the evening before scurrying away to do something or other, and she calls _enter_ without looking up from her paperwork.

“Are you busy?”

Her head darts up. Before her desk, wearing new clothes with a discreet leaf-pattern woven directly into the midnight blue fabric and smelling inexplicably of honeysuckle, stands Jon. His tied-back hair is still wet from the bath, his beard gleams in the candlelight as if combed with oil, and he's so handsome it takes her a good moment to gather her wits and reply.

“Why?” she asks.

“Would you like to go for a walk?”

“At this hour? It’s dark out.”

“Aye.” He smiles. “It’s dark out.”

Quill down, she squints at him and his smile and his new fine garb. “Should I change?”

“Only if you like, but… I think you maybe would like to this time. If you knew.”

“Knew what?”

Jon only smiles, lips closed and eyes sparkling.

* * *

Ella, not Kari, waits for her in the bedchamber. While Sansa nurses Iselinde, she tries luring answers out of her handmaiden, but Ella says she's sworn to secrecy and mimics locking her lips with a key before picking out a dress for Sansa. It's of dark silver-gray velvet, snug around the bust, and flows from her waist like a moonlit waterfall. Beautiful, yes, but comfortable and warm too. Even on a cool spring night. Anticipation flutters in Sansa's belly, but she quells her emotions and walks out composed with Lamb trotting behind her. 

Jon pushes himself off the wall he was leaning on, gaping at her. “You look…”

As if dazed, he shakes his head and breathes out a smile and it’s worth more than all the eloquent compliments in all the known world. She thanks him with a shy smile that lingers on her lips all the way to the courtyard.

"Where are we going?" she asks.

"You'll see," he says and leads her through the gates.

There, beneath a crescent moon and illuminated by two lanterns flanking the driver's seat, stands an open carriage plucked from the pages of a beautifully illustrated storybook. Ivy and honeysuckle wind around the usually plain wood-frames of the passenger seat. Pretty ivory ribbons decorate both carriage and horses, and flutter in the evening breeze like pale moths. And on the polished wooden seat lie soft furs for warmth and comfort.

Sansa blinks, exhaling through parted lips. “You said a walk.”

“Yeah, well, you did walk here."

Beaming, Jon plucks Iselinde from her arms and nods at her to climb aboard. The baby is as entranced as Sansa. Lying in her father’s embrace, she blinks up at the flowers and ribbons and the stars twinkling above. But it’s late and her belly is full, and when they take left onto a sunken way that rocks the carriage soothingly and shelters them from the rest of the world with high embankments and a ceiling of alders and aspens stretching their branches over the road, it doesn’t matter how exciting everything is. Iselinde soon falls asleep without a fuss.

Smiling tenderly, Jon brushes a kiss to her forehead. “We should remember this next time she has trouble sleeping.”

“I’m sure the driver will love being dragged up in the middle of the night.”

Jon’s eyes gleam happily in the lantern-light. “I can drive a horse and carriage, Sansa.”

The world opens up, then, and the carriage rolls out on a starlit meadow. Long grass and wildflowers fold beneath the decelerating wheels until they stop. Around them looms the wolfswood, dark and quiet. Sansa looks at Jon, puzzled, but he still gives nothing away, only gestures at her to climb out. Before she's had a chance to move, however, Lamb’s ears prick and the wolf shoots out of the wagon. She doesn't dive into the wolfswood, though, but moves forward, beyond the carriage, and Sansa follows to see where the amber wolf runs.

Her chin drops.

Up a hill, torches light a path all the way from the foot to the top where the silhouette of a tent rises against the star-strewn sky. Breathless, Sansa lifts her skirts and follows the light up up up over golden tussocks and sleeping flowers until she’s reached the tent. By then her thighs burn. For a beat, she merely stands there to catch her breath and wrap her head around what she's seeing. At the edge of the hill stands a low table in front of plush cushions and furs laid out over the grass. Around them, hanging from poles shoved into the ground, hang glass lanterns decorated with flowers and ribbons. They glow like fireflies in the night. The tent glows too. Through its open flaps stream red-gold light and the rich scent of vanilla and cinnamon. Closing her eyes, Sansa breathes it in before heading inside. There, at a larger table, Kari fusses over food and drink. By her feet lies Lamb gnawing on a bone. Upon seeing them, Kari curtsies with a smile, takes the sleeping baby, and tucks her into Rickon's old cot that stands between two braziers. Then she pets Lamb's ear and returns to the table to plate treats and pour drinks.

“Come,” Jon says and leads Sansa to the cushions where he takes a seat.

Slowly, she turns in a circle and takes in their surroundings. Far into the east she spies what can only be the braziers and torches of Winterfell. To the west she sees clusters of light scattered over the landscapes. Little settlements, villages, farms. Beneath them sleeps the wolfwood, dark and quiet and still, and before them hangs Sindra’s Spire between the Bear Paw and Wulfe the Hunter, all sparkling like precious gems in the vast expanse of darkest blue.

A breath flows out of her and she sinks down on the cushions too. "Are we stargazing tonight?"

"Yeah, there’s a starshower. About an hour left or so.”

“A starshower,” she whispers, blinking at him with tear-filled eyes. " _How_? How did you do all this?"

A smile curves his lips. “With a little help.” 

“I thought you were…” She draws a relieved breath. “Maester Wolkan’s been very busy lately. I assume he’s one of your little helpers?”

“Aye. He got a raven from the Citadel the other morning. I was up early, ran into him, and when he told me…” Jon shrugs. “Thought maybe you’d like that. Shooting stars. He offered to help. And then I recruited Kari. Suppose we got a bit carried away.”

“ _Jon_ ,” Sansa says, shaking her head. " _This_ is what you've been up to?"

“You don’t like it.” He rubs himself over one eye. “Too much? I know we could’ve just watched it from the battlements, but I wanted to find the perfect spot and... Maybe it's stupid, but I thought you’d like it.”

“I do like it. It’s wonderful. But you should’ve told me.”

He frowns. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“You were strange and distant and I thought--”

He closes his eyes with a sigh. “You really don't trust me, do you. I thought I’d been clear. About how I feel and what I want. I’m not a fickle person either. I just wanted to do something romantic and surprises are romantic. I know that much.”

“They are,” she says, softly, and he opens his eyes again, looking at her like a wounded puppy. “But after everything we’ve gone through, after everything that’s happened between us…”

“Yeah, I get it. No surprises, then?”

She hums, biting her lip as she looks out over his hard work. “I don’t know. If the surprise is this lovey…”

He sits a bit straighter. “Yeah?”

“If you want to surprise me again, tell me so I won’t worry and I promise I won’t snoop.”

“All right. You have yourself a deal."

He smiles softly at her, that look back in his eyes. The one she sees so often now and she can’t meet for longer than a heartbeat before she feels as if she’s standing on the Wall, too close to the slippery edge.

She clears her throat and looks up at the sky. “Now, where am I supposed to look? Do we need a lens tube?”

“We’re supposed to be able to see it right about there.” He gestures up at Sindra’s Spire. “No lens tube needed. At least according to Wolkan. He’s been studying the sky through his Myrish eye, done his own calculations. This is the best place for it. In about an hour, maybe. Or so he says.”

Sansa settles in with a satisfied sigh. They haven’t sat in silence for long before Kari serves them watered white wine, crisp and sweet, with warm soft cheese, cream whipped with vanilla, and tart cloudberry preserves. Jon dismisses her with a nod and she tells them she’ll be right down the hill, watching the shower with the driver, if they need her. Then she backs away from them with the poorly concealed excitement of a matron hoping for grandchildren before turning around and scurrying off.

Sansa scoops up a dollop of cream and sucks it off her finger, eyes back on the sky. “I’m trying to remember the story. About Sindra. She was a lady, I remember that, but…”

Jon grabs his wine, the foot of the glass clinking against the plate. “Neither do I. Never listened much during astronomy. Staring at stars didn’t seem that exciting then.”

Resting her chin on her shoulder, she looks at him coyly. “And now?”

“Planned this, didn’t I?”

“And it's very impressive. It would've been more impressive if you remembered the story of the constellation we’re watching, though.” She tuts at him. “You’ll have to make something up while we wait.”

Jon lowers the wine glass. “Do I?”

“Yes. You’re Jon the Storyteller. It should be easy for you.”

He exhales through his nose. “When did I become Jon the Storyteller?”

“You often read to me. And you told me about Isern and Lind. Remember?”

“Aye, but I didn’t make that one up.”

“You’re a well read man now. All those books must’ve taught you something. Please? I’d like a story.”

He chuckles through a crooked mouth, shaking his head before sipping his wine. “You asked me whether Isern won her heart. Lind’s heart. I didn't know then, but I do now. Mossroot and Noreg told me. I was saving it for… I don’t know. Tonight’s as good a night as any, I suppose.”

He puts the cup aside and begins to speak, his voice a soft whisper flowing into the night. 

Once the Iselind flowed between the Iron Mountains and the Bay of Ice, Isern returned to his solitary mountain life and mined his ores and counted his silver and iron and gold, and drank horns of fermented mammoth milk with his brothers and sisters when the moon stood high in the sky and the giants feasted. But every time a critter squeaked or a bird sang, for the beat of a heart, he always thought it was Lind crying and sprung to his feet to help her before he realized. He tried to forget the girl, but the moon turned and still all he could think of was the little creature with the big heart. What was fermented milk and precious metals compared to her kind smile and mischievous eyes and warm little hands?

The ground shook when he jumped down to the moor. Lind dropped her pail with a squeak, but when she saw her friend, her smile shone brighter than the sun. They worked together, then, tending to the land and the animals and the creatures of old. Soon Lind forgot how it felt to be alone and she never again came across a problem so insurmountable she had to sit down and cry and cry into her hands, for Isern was always there to help. But then, one day, a longing started growing in her heart for something not even Isern could give her: a babe.

“He’d won her heart,” Jon says. “And they were happy for decades and decades. The moor flourished under their care, but giants grow old quicker than the Children. Much quicker. Lind saw his beard turn silver and the lines of his eyes deepen while she stayed young. He would pass long before her and then she’d have nothing of him left but the river. And so she sat again, on her mossy rock, and wept into her hands. In his desperation to comfort her any way he could, Isern took rock from the mountain and carved with deft hands children who looked a little bit like him and a little bit like her. As he worked, Lind watched him thoughtfully. He was carving eyes from sapphires and hair from gold and copper when she came to him with her pail full of weirwood sap. ‘Lifesblood,’ she told him and cut their palms and squeezed in drops of their blood too. And that blood, she poured into the stone children to give them life.”

“Did it work?”

“Aye, it worked. Four children, they had, with blue eyes and copper-gold hair. Apparently, the Thenn believe they’re descendants of them. That most of the Free Folk are. That it’s why they’re so often tall and blue-eyed and"--Jon tugs on her braid--"ginger.”

“No, they don’t,” she says, laughing. “You’re making that up to tease me.”

“I’m not. They say it’s why they often can warg too. Why they have the greensight when most southerners don’t.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Nah. I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my life, but even after all that, it’s a bit hard to believe you can make people out of stone.”

“Love made it possible,” she mumbles. “That’s the true message, isn’t it? Their love for one another created a river and healed the land and gave life even to stone. I would’ve loved that story as a girl.”

“But not now?”

“It’s a pretty story--it is--and I hope Iselinde will love it, but it’s different now, isn’t it? When you’re old and cynical.” She smiles wryly. “Now, tell me about Sindra, Jon the Storyteller. We still have time to spare.”

He groans. “I’m not good at it. Why do you want that so badly? Just eat your dessert.”

“I like listening to your voice,” she says, making hers soft, looking at him through her lashes and pouting, just a bit.

“You think I’m going to fall for that?”

“It was worth a try.”

He lifts one corner of his mouth in a grin. “Perhaps she was the maiden you used to play. The one who was locked in a tower and guarded by a beast. Must’ve gotten that game from somewhere. Perhaps Sindra sat in her spire and waited for a handsome knight to save her. That's how the songs usually go.”

“I’m old and cynical, remember. I don’t like stories like that anymore. Handsome knights don’t save maidens. Knights do what their king tells them to do--and kings like their maidens meek and pretty and caged. If Sindra was locked in that spire, it wasn’t a beast guarding her but a knight.”

“What, so the beast saved her?”

“Perhaps she locked herself in that spire.” Sansa fills her spoon with preserves and cheese and cream, and washes it down with a sip of watered wine. “Perhaps she’d learned that life isn’t a song. That, unlike what stories want us to believe, love doesn’t conquer all. It won’t heal the land. It won’t give life to stone. It'll only break your heart and make a fool out of you. But in her spire, she could read and sew and watch the stars. In her spire, she was safe.”

Through her peripheral, she notices Jon watching her; she eats more of her dessert.

“And sometimes knights would come anyway," she says. "To best the beast. Only they found none and once they realized the maiden wasn’t a prize to be won, they grew bored at left. That’s a better story.”

“Is it?” Jon mumbles. “Was a bit boring, if you ask me. Shouldn't stories be more thrilling than that?"

Sansa laughs quietly. “Maybe I like boring.”

“Do you?” he says, still watching her. “Is that how you want that story to end? With Sindra alone in her spire.”

“I don’t know. It’s your story. How would you end it?”

His beard rasps beneath his fingers. “One evening, a man happened upon the tower. Not a prince or a knight looking for a challenge. Just some farmer who had more important things to do than save maidens who wouldn't want him and his old farm anyway. But when he saw Sindra sitting in her window, brushing her hair and singing a song, he sat down for a bit. To listen. He'd never heard anything so beautiful before. Couldn't help himself. And, before he knew it, she'd stolen his heart completely. So he decided--a bit grumpy, mind you, because he had things to do and didn't much care for spoiled princesses--to settle down and wait for her to give him his heart back. Time passed. He built himself a cabin and waited and waited--and fell more and more in love. Despite himself. Despite his intentions. Despite the fact that he was just a farmer and she was a princess. Because he'd realized she was everything he'd always wanted. That he'd only told himself he didn't like princesses because he knew he could never have one.

"What if that happened? What if he realized he didn't want his heart back--that it was hers to keep--would she come down, then? From her tower.”

Sansa blinks slowly, drawing her spoon through the half-melted cream left on her plate. “If she did, wouldn’t the farmer be disappointed? He fell in love with a perfect princess in a tower, but that’s not who she is. Perfect princesses don’t exist. She's just a woman with flaws and troubles and bad days.”

“You think he doesn’t know that? After all that time, he knows. He’s seen her sick and sullen and petty and even a bit mean. Her beauty might’ve dazzled him at first, but it’s not why he loves her. Getting to know her--truly know her--only made his feelings grow deeper. Not because she’s perfect or pretty or a princess, but because she’s _her_.”

“Even though she’s difficult to love?” Sansa mumbles. "Even though she can be cold sometimes. And even a bit mean."

“She’s not. Life might’ve made it difficult to love someone he shouldn’t have, but... Sansa," he says and her name is a song from his lips, "you're _so_ easy to love.”

Sansa sniffles, still staring at her plate through a blurry veil of tears.

“I think you’re right,” he says, quietly. “Love isn’t enough. It’s not. But I think you’re wrong too. About Isern and Lind. Love didn’t magically heal the land. Love didn’t magically create the river. Love didn’t magically give them children. Isern loved her enough to make the river and, together, they healed the land. Together, they created their children. Aye, love gave them the will and the strength to work hard--but they did work. They took what they were given and they made the best of it.”

The cushions beneath them dip when he turns more fully to her. “I know you need time. I’m not going to rush you. Take your time. But I want you to know that I don’t expect it to be perfect or even easy--and I still want it. I still want _you_. I'm ready to do the work, Sansa. I _want_ to do the work. My heart is yours. I don't want it back. But..." His sigh is heavy and deep and smells sweet of the wine. "If you decide you don't want it, if you decide to hand it back after all, I trust that you'll treat it gently when you do."

When they were snowed in that first year, Sansa and her people, she thought of tales of endless winters. Decades passing beneath a perpetually overcast sky. Decades of nights colder than death. Spring was a dream, then. The memory of cream and sugar on your tongue after months of bark bread and meat so dry you could chew it for hours. In tired moments she believed she’d never see another spring. That none of them would. She wore her confidence like a mask for her people and removed it whenever she was alone. 

After she ordered her men to sow their crops and the snow came back after all, she cried in secret until she choked on her tears. When the world finally thawed again and grew green, any sudden chill, any ashen cloud, had her convinced they’d once more wake up to a winter landscape the next morning. She could spend hours by the window, watching the evening sky as if the only thing keeping it from releasing snow was her vigilance. The next year, at the first signs of spring, they once more held their breaths and prayed. It took them years to trust that the seasons now flow like the river.

Like she dreamed of spring, she too dreamed of Jon. A pillow in her arms, the furs tucked snug around her at night, were a poor imitation of his hard chest against her chest, of his warm, strong arms around her back. As the years passed, she accepted that she’d never feel it again. His embrace. That it would be but a memory that would fade with time until she forgot what it felt like to be held by someone she truly loved. She accepted that he never had and never would love her the way she loved him.

But now he’s here, offering her a dream--and it feels as much an illusion as spring did those weeks when her confidence was a mask hiding her doubting heart. Only, this isn’t a matter of life or death. She doesn't have to take a chance. She can safely stay indoors. She can keep her little seed for as long as she likes.

She can keep it forever.

Jon's hand lies so close she can feel the warmth of it against her own hand. Close and still, inviting her touch rather than demanding it. He’s not even demanding an answer after opening his heart so bravely to her when she’s giving him nothing in return. He only sits there and waits for the stars. Waits for her, patiently, no matter how long it takes.

She inches her fingers closer and closer until she feels warm, soft skin beneath her fingertips. His breath catches. She stops. Looks up at the stars. Listens to the thrumming of her heart or maybe his, to the rush of blood in their veins. Listens to him breathing again. Then she slides her palm over the back of his hand until it rests atop it. Sindra’s Spire sparkles in the sky. Seven bright stars. Thirteen fainter ones. Jon turns his hand so their palms kiss. Sansa fits her fingers between his fingers, brushes her thumb over his wrist and feels the quick, steady beat of his pulse that matches the quick, steady beat of her own. Above them the first star falls, a golden stroke across the sky so brief she would’ve missed it had she blinked. 

“Did you see it?” he whispers.

“Yes,” she whispers back. “I saw it.”

Then they sit there in silence with her hand warm and safe in his, like a seed nestled into the earth, and watch the stars paint gold across the sky together.


	29. Tender Is the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Jon opens up about his relationship with Dany, which in this story is interpreted as abusive (her abusing him). So a tw for talk about past abusive relationships. (Sansa talks a bit about hers too.)

Shaded by a pale gray canopy from the ever hotter sun, Sansa picks up yellow thread and, squinting at the needle, pushes it through the eye. It’s an adorable squint, really, with her eyes going the slightest bit cross. Next to her, propped up by cushions, sits Iselinde in a wool tunic and wool stockings, moving a rattle from hand to hand with great effort. Her hair has started growing back in thick locks the color of chestnuts, and her eyes are still the dark gray of Winterfell, but her expression is the same adorable squint as her mother's.

Smiling to himself, Jon returns his attention to the notebook in his hands and keeps shading the sketch there. For days, he’s worked on different versions, going back and forth on what looks best. Now, finally, he thinks he’s got it.

“I have to go to White Harbor,” he says. “I have to oversee a few things.”

“Then send your foreman.” Sansa changes to white thread. “You don’t have to go yourself.”

Jon peers at her. “You don’t want me to go?”

Her mouth drops open, hand stilling in the air with the thread fluttering gently in the breeze. Then she finds herself and keeps weaving the needle deftly through the fabric. “You just came back, that’s all. Iselinde will miss you.”

Head bowed, Sansa keeps her eye on her work, but it does little to hide how her cheeks turn the same shade of pink as the clusters of primroses carpeting the ground.

He means it every time he tells her he’ll give her all the time she needs. But that doesn’t mean it’s never difficult to stay hopeful.

There are moments, even days, when Jon thinks this is all they’ll ever be. That she’s grown comfortable in this new life of theirs where they talk and laugh and rarely argue. As a queen, she's learned to look at the long-term. She’s learned to make things sustainable and avoid unnecessary risks. Perhaps that’s what romance seems to her now.

Not that things aren’t inching forward. They are. She accepts the arm he offers her on their walks, now, and his hand too when he wants to help her cross a makeshift bridge of planks or mossy rocks, or jump over a ditch, or ascend a path knobbly with roots. The other evening, when he arranged for their supper to be served in the godswood beneath an open sky and countless lanterns hung from the trees, she even held his hand afterwards as they walked back to the Keep, and lingered outside her door to chat for a little while longer despite her yawns and sleepy eyes. But there's still a tension in her body when he comes too near. A hint of panic in her eyes when he holds her gaze for too long. Believing then that he’ll ever learn what it feels like to kiss her, what it feels like to love her and be loved by her in return, is more difficult than ever.

When she blushes like a maid, though… When she blushes the way she does now, that’s when the hope within him grows strong and bolsters his confidence. That’s when he knows he affects her too.

“What are you doing?” he says, nodding at the needle and thread when she, bemused, looks up at him.

“I’m embroidering,” she says, slowly, staring at him as if he asked her whether it’s fish or birds that fly.

“Aye, I can see that. _What_ are you embroidering?”

“My nameday dress. You know that.”

“Oh, it’s your _nameday_ soon.” He shoots her a grin. “Who would’ve guessed.”

A sparkle lights up her eyes. “Are you planning something?”

“If I am, am I allowed to go?”

She arches an eyebrow. “I didn’t know I was your gaoler.”

“You’re not,” he says, laughing. “But, yeah, I need a few things for your gifts and...” He shrugs one shoulder. “Since we have to share you with the rest of the North on your actual nameday, I thought maybe we could celebrate at the mere just the three of us. Like we did on my nameday.”

Her mouth curves into a gentle smile. “I’d like that. It could be a tradition. Something just for us."

“Aye. Something just for us. And I’ll take care of everything. You trust me with that now, don’t you?”

“If you recruit Kari again, yes, I do.”

Jon frowns at that. “I have some ideas of my own. I can be romantic. I’m not completely hopeless.”

“No,” Sansa says and the look in her eyes is so tender he ends up being the one blushing now, “I was only teasing you. You’re not hopeless at all.”

* * *

* * *

Two days later, on a morning so early mist still clings to the dewy grass, Jon rides off with his foreman and a guard. With their still-sleeping baby in her arms, Sansa stays on the battlements until the dark shape of him and his cloak and Shadow turns into a pinprick against the yellowing horizon. She knows he’ll be back, knows things are different now, and yet she can’t help that pang in her heart whenever he leaves her. As if their growing bond is too brittle still to be tested. Even with all these changes, even after hearing him say all the right things (especially after that), it’s difficult to not look for the hook nestled into the lure when it’s how she’s survived ever since she learned how dirty the world truly is.

It’s equally difficult to not let herself be swept away every time he shows her how he feels. And when he, as if he longed for her and Iselinde so much he couldn’t bear being apart for longer than necessary and rode through the night rather than stay at an inn, returns early another misty morning, the joy is enough to carry Sansa down the stairs and across the courtyard on feet lighter than clouds.

It’s only when she nearly bumps into a scullery maid lugging buckets of water from the well that sense returns to her and she comports herself.

Not that Jon notices. By then, he’s stalking across the courtyard and toward the Keep like a wolf who’ll growl and sneer at anyone trying to approach. He didn’t even see her.

“Did he say anything,” she asks Oskar, who still stands at the stable with Shadow’s reins in his hands.

“Not a word, Your Grace. He looked tired, though, didn’t he. And when he’s tired he can be in a bit of a mood.”

“I know.” She smiles at the boy. “Thank you, Oskar.”

  
  


Meetings eat up the rest of her morning. Even if Jon wanted to come see her, he wouldn’t interrupt. And if he rode through the night, he would be tired. He’s probably asleep in his chamber by now and won’t wake until his stomach growls for supper. So she puts her worries aside and focuses on work.

At lunch, however, just as she’s sat down at the table with her advisers, Jon comes through the door after all. But he takes one look at their company and blanches. Gaze flitting around the room, he shifts his weight. Swallows. Smiles unconvincingly and says, “Yeah, the roads were good,” when Wolkan happily points out he’s home earlier than expected. 

“Didn’t you promise Oskar to eat at the mere if you returned early?” Sansa says, casually draping her napkin over her lap. “He mentioned it to me this morning.”

Jon’s eyes widen before he catches on and thanks her with a warm look. “Aye,” he says, “I did.”

As short a time as he lingered in the dining chamber, his restlessness still managed to infect her. Once she returns to work, she keeps tapping her fingers against her desk, forgets about the quill and lets it bleed ink onto the parchment in fat blots, stares at the drooping flowers in the vase. Fails in stopping her mind from conjuring all sorts of scenarios of what could’ve happened at White Harbor that would leave him acting this way.

But that’s not helpful. Not to her--and certainly not to him. She _can_ be helpful, though. She can show him she cares and is there for him without being overbearing.

And so she leaves her desk to have a calm evening prepared for him. A lukewarm bath in a room lit by the waning daylight slanting in through open shutters. Fresh linen in his bed. His favorite meals and a pitcher of Winterfell’s best ale served for him in his chamber. A book of poems she thinks he’ll like, with one of the flowers he’s given her pressed between the pages of a long poem about a man and his horse and the serene woods through which they ride that made her think especially of him. It’s not much. Compared to what he’s done for her lately, it’s barely anything at all. But she trusts he knows it’s care not pressure. She trusts he’ll come to her when he’s ready to talk.

She trusts him.

* * *

* * *

With his stomach full of food and ale (and his heart full of love and longing), Jon knocks on Sansa’s door. She looks surprised to see him, but steps aside and lets him in without a word. The signs of him once sprinkled over the chamber (Longclaw leaning against the wall; his boots standing in a corner; books and leather strings for his hair lying on the nightstand; his tunic hanging over the backrest of a chair) are long gone. Being in here feels almost wrong again, as if he’s intruding.

“Thank you,” he says. “For the bath and the food and… the lie.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I liked the poem.”

“I hoped you would.”

He nods his head. “The foreman and the guard?”

“Arrived an hour ago. Safe and sound.”

“Good.” He gestures at the bed. “I’d like to say goodnight to…”

“Of course.”

On the bed, next to Lamb who’s stretched out on the side that once was Jon’s, lies Iselinde with her rattle. The sheets on Sansa’s side are rumpled. A still-steaming cup of tea, and knitting waits for her on her nightstand. By now the sun is nosing at the horizon and she’s lit candles all over the room to better see what she’s doing. It should cast them in a cozy glow, but all Jon can see in all those flickering flames are the terrified faces of people covered in blood and ashes.

He scoops up his daughter and buries his nose in those chestnut locks and breathes in the scent of life and love and home until those faces fade.

“Did something happen in White Harbor?” Sansa asks, quietly.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not in front of her,” he whispers. “Not in front of Iselinde.”

  
  


While Sansa leaves the baby with Kari, Jon fetches the pitcher of ale and a tankard from his chamber, and settles down on the divan in his usual spot. When Sansa returns, she sits down on her side and waits in silence with her hands folded in her lap. There’s nothing cold about that silence, though. There’s nothing cold about her. The mask she’s so often worn around him doesn’t hide her face tonight.

“I’ve been sheltered here,” he says. “At Winterfell. Everyone knows me and likes me. They call me my lord or Lord Jon. I even get a Your Grace every once in a while, and they mean it. It’s not derisive. It’s made me forget. That it might not be how people out there see me. Well”--he bends his lips into a tired smile--”I was reminded.”

He’d barely entered the throng of people before senses honed from years as a fighter, and years surviving alone in the wilderness, told him they were being followed. But they kept their distance and he went about his business. After a while they disappeared. Jon knew better than to relax, though. And once he and his men sat down at an inn to sup later that evening, he wasn’t surprised to see his stalkers a few tables away from them.

“I didn’t recognize them, but I knew they were my men once. Men I dragged down south before they’d had a chance to heal and threw into a bleeding inferno. One of them was burned. Half the side of his face, down his neck. His hand was burned too. Another had lost an arm. Not sure about the third, but the look in his eyes…” Jon shakes his head and fills his tankard with ale, takes a mouthful. “You don’t go through that and come out whole. Even if your body is whole. You just don’t. It stays with you.” He stares down into the golden drink, at the lacy foam floating at the top. “I don’t blame them for being angry.”

“Did they hurt you?” she whispers. “Are you hurt? If they touched you…”

“No. They didn’t. They wanted to say their peace, that’s all, so I let them.”

The inn went from a bustling din to so quiet you’d hear a mouse skittering across the floorboards. They were drunk, those men. Tankards swinging in their hands as they moved closer (but never so close they were within reach). Traitor, they called him. Targaryen scum. Things worse than that. Things he doesn’t share with Sansa about how they spat at him that he should’ve controlled his woman better. That fucking his aunt had woken the dragon in him, woken his thirst for fire and blood. And for kin too. That his aunt hadn’t been enough for him and he had to seduce his poor little sister too. That he never would’ve succeeded in that had Ramsay not--

Jon shakes his head to clear it from the echoes of the insults they hurled over him. Insults he’ll _never_ share with her. Instead he tells her the rest.

“They accused me of repeating Robb’s mistakes. That I fell in love with a foreign whore and lost my crown because of it. I was good man once, they said, until my Targaryen aunt corrupted me and made me forget I was supposed to be the son of Eddard Stark. ‘We finally have a good Stark on the throne,’ they said. One that wouldn’t sell them all for a taste of some juicy… Well, I’m sure you can figure that one out. They said…” Jon works his jaw, presses his fingers into the carved bone of the tankard until they pale. “They said I’ll corrupt Iselinde if I stay here. That I’ll bring out the Targaryen in her. And if… If I cared at all, I’d leave and let her grow up a proper Stark.”

Sansa moves a bit closer, her knees touching his. “Just because you don’t blame them for being angry, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. It doesn’t have to mean they’re right.”

“But what if they are?” The words come out choked; he washes down the lump in his throat with the rest of the ale and puts down the empty tankard. “She wasn’t always bad. She can’t’ve been or she wouldn’t have had that many people following her. Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. And every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air--isn’t that what they say?”

“You think she went mad? That it was inevitable.”

“I don’t know. After Sam told me the truth, it angered me. That someone would think we’re cursed when we’re born. That we have no choice but to live up to our House words. But fire and blood, that’s not me. I told myself it wasn’t her either. That maybe she could be good. Maybe she could be the woman her followers saw in her. The woman she believed herself to be, but you should’ve seen her at the end.” A shudder travels through him. “She was happy. Happier than I’d ever seen her. She’d burned people alive--women, children, babes in their mothers’ arms--and she was euphoric.”

His chin trembles and when he looks down at his hands, he finds them trembling too. But then Sansa’s hands are there, closing around them like a blanket. The weight of them stills him, calms him, grounds him. He tightens his fingers around hers and holds on.

“Battle does something to a man. I’ve seen men become animals. All instinct and no sense. But this was different. She was… proud. Satisfied. She thought it was good. That _she_ was good--and she talked about doing it again and again. All over the world. Is that not madness?”

“I don’t know,” Sansa whispers, thumbs stroking over the back of his hands. 

“I promised myself I’d never forget. That I should let it end with me. No more Dragons. And still I--”

Sansa pulls back at his words, her fingers sliding over his skin until they rest in her lap. A tear trickles down her cheek. “Do you regret it. Our daught--”

“No!” Jon moves closer to her, his knees bumping into her thigh. “I could never regret Iselinde. _Never_. But I worry. How could I not? Daenerys was an innocent little girl once. And in the end, she was a monster. How did that happen? I don’t believe in fate or the gods. Bran says we make our own choices, forge our own paths. That’s what I believe. So what choices were made to lead her down that path? I have to know so I can make sure it _never_ happens to Iselinde.”

“You already are,” Sansa says, softly. “You’re a good father and a good man. You told me once that our child would be lucky, because they were so wanted and so loved by both her parents--and she is. I don’t know much about Daenerys, but from what Littlefinger told me, she grew up unsafe. She had no mother and father to love and protect her. She was always on the run with her brother. And then he sold her to a warlord when he was the only person in the world she should’ve been able to rely on to keep her safe. Our daughter won’t have a life like that. Even if, gods forbid, something would happen to you and me, she’ll still have people all over Westeros who’ll love her. Wolkan and Kari and Tormund. Meera and Drustan. Uncle Edmure and my cousin Robin and Yohn Royce. Sam. Davos. Brienne. Bran. And Arya, wherever she is… Iselinde will be _loved_ and--”

“Love.” Jon presses his lips together, nodding. “So that’s it? What she was missing. Not enough love.”

His stomach roils, the taste of blood and death and ashes seeping into his mouth, coating his tongue. He splashes more ale into the tankard to wash that away too with the rich bittersweet taste of Winterfell.

Then, once the tankard is empty, he starts from the beginning when he sailed straight into a trap after all and became a prisoner on that island. No matter what his captors tried to claim. They took his ships and refused to let him leave. What does it matter that he was allowed to wander the island when he wasn’t allowed to return home? He wasn’t even allowed to join the bleeding wight hunt, until he put his foot down. Aye, he was a prisoner (and he remained one until he stepped off the pier in King’s Landing and boarded a ship north to take the black again).

“When we were at Dragonstone, the first time,” he says. “Davos tried hinting at romance. And I got why. She was pretty. I wouldn’t have to kneel. And, united, we could put an end to both the Night King and Cersei. But I didn’t want to give up the North. And I certainly didn’t want to tie myself to that woman for the rest of my life. So I kept my head down. Observed. Did what she asked of me, and gave her nothing of myself. Not until…”

He squeezes his eyes shut at the memories rushing back in. Memories of waking up naked and exhausted and barely alive on a strange ship only to see _her_ sitting on his bed and staring at him. Bringing him south again without his permission when he needed to be _home_. Memories of fumbling through games he never learned how to play properly. Memories of making himself numb and doing what was needed when she summoned him to her cabin one late winter’s night on their journey north when he no longer was a king but her subject.

“She was a queen. My queen. Or so I claimed. It's what she wanted to hear. And when she wanted her bed warmed too... How do you say no to that? How do you say no to the Queen when you’re finally on your way home to save everything you love and she could take it all away with one word?”

Sansa’s eyes shine with tears. He knows his do too, can feel those tears soothing the stinging in his eyes when he closes them with a weary exhale.

“We did it twice. On the boat. Then I started getting better at finding excuses. Gave her a kiss here and there. A kind word. A warm look. Just enough to keep her from realizing. Just enough to keep her invested in the fight. I was disgusted with myself, but I thought: it’ll be over soon. She’ll grow bored of me and want someone new and exciting to warm her bed. Because I was. Boring. Around her.” He huffs out a hollow laugh. “I’m not sure she noticed--or at least she didn't mind. She’d fallen for me. That only made me feel worse. Guilty for fooling the girl beneath all those dragonscales. So when Sam told me the truth, I thought that was the answer. She always talked about how lonely she was. The last Targaryen. If I told her she wasn't, maybe she could love me as family instead. Maybe I could find some love for her too and we could all live together in peace. Maybe, once everything had settled and she’d gotten her throne, she’d be a bit more reasonable and give us back the North.”

Jon shakes his head at his own foolish self. “I was naive. It was all talk. She _wanted_ to be the Last Targaryen. It was yet another title for her. Another way for her to be special. She didn’t want a family, couldn’t understand the love I had for mine. Couldn’t understand love at all or what it meant. But by the time I realized she needed to be the only thing that mattered, it was too late. We were leaving Winterfell and I was trapped. She’d never let me go now. I was a threat to her rule. I either had to be completely devoted to her and hide who I was, even from my own family--or I and everyone I loved would be her enemy. And I knew what she did to her enemies, so I...”

His voice dies. His hands are shaking again, his chest heaving with tremulous breaths, but he has to get this out, he has to, and his confession rushes out of him, hoarse and desperate.

“After she burned Varys, she told me she had no love in Westeros, only fear. She practically begged me to love her and I tried, Sansa, I did, but I couldn’t do it. She didn’t believe it anymore and a million people died for it. A million people burned because I couldn’t love her. It’s my fault, what happened in King's Landing. It’s all my fault. If only I had pretended better. If only I had--”

“ _Stop_.” Sansa’s hands find his again, pulling him closer and closer until their foreheads touch and he leans into her, exhausted. “You listen to me,” she whispers, her voice a fervent tremble. “It’s not your fault. It’s _not_.”

“But she told me. ‘Let it be fear.’ That’s what she said when I couldn’t kiss her. _Let it be fear,_ and the next day--”

“That’s what people like her do. They put the blame on someone else so they can keep doing horrible things and pretend they had no choice. But it _was_ her choice. She _chose_ to burn down King’s Landing. She _chose_ to burn all those people. She wanted to do it or she wouldn’t have done it. It was _not_ your fault.”

When Jon blinks, hot tears slide down his cheeks. He’s so tired. He barely slept all night, only ever stopped when Shadow needed it. The few hours he did get in were filled with old horrors, with fire and blood, and he woke up feeling even worse than before. He’s so tired. Too tired to protest. Too tired to tell Sansa what happened next. Too tired to do anything at all but just sit there and share air with her, like two horses bonding. Her breath flows over his lips in warm, tea-and-honey scented puffs. She’s so close. If he angles his head... But he’s too tired to do even that.

She’s the one who angles her head, instead. But not to finally kiss his lips, but to give sweet little kisses to his cheek, his temple, his forehead. To murmur, " _It’s not your fault,"_ over and over as she strokes her hands up his arms, over his shoulders, across his back, and folds him into her embrace while leaning farther and farther back until they’re lying together on the divan with him tucked into her like a little boy. A little boy weeping and weeping in a way he can’t remember ever weeping. A lifetime of pent-up grief and exhaustion and guilt and pain spill over in endless waves while Sansa hums a lullaby into his ear and runs her fingers through his hair, down his back, through his hair, down his back, through his hair, down his back until he’s limp.

Deep down, some part of him that learned that men should always be strong, that men can allow themselves only a tear or two before soldiering on, whispers that he should be ashamed of himself for falling apart like this. For soaking the neckline of her nightdress with his tears like a child when he’s a man grown.

But he can’t remember ever being held like this, either. Not in this tender way where every brush of her fingers, every featherlight press of her lips against his hair, feel like love. Like _real_ love, caring and deep and accepting--and so much stronger than the chiding voice within could ever be.

With his nose pressed against the warm skin at the curve of Sansa’s neck, Jon lets himself fall asleep, safe and held, and dream of all things soft and good.

* * *

Sunlight tickles his face. He stretches out with a groan, a thin blanket slipping from his body and pooling on the floor. He’s hard too, straining against his breeches. On Sansa’s divan, in Sansa’s bedchamber, with Sansa still in it, considering the swift click-clack coming from the bed on the other side of the backrest.

He waits until he’s soft before he pops his head up and peers at her over the edge.

She’s alone in bed, knitting something or other in yarn the color of their daughter’s eyes. He ruffles his hair, squinting at the morning light; Sansa smiles and keeps knitting.

“Where’s Iselinde?”

“With Kari,” she says and turns her work over.

“Still?”

“No.” Sansa’s smile grows. A fond amusement at his bewildered state. “She took her barely an hour ago.”

“I slept here all night?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to wake you.”

He remembers, then, how he clung to her like a child and fell asleep in her arms. He remembers a knock pulling him half awake, remembers her lips against his temple in a tender kiss before she slipped out from under him to open the door and take Iselinde from Kari. The scent of Sansa lingered on the decorative pillow under his nose. Burrowing into it, he listened to her pottering around and getting herself and their daughter ready for bed until he fell asleep again. Not held, perhaps, but still safe. Home.

Warmth suffuses him, from love and gratitude--and from deepest shame.

“I’m sorry,” he says before he can help himself.

Sansa lowers her knitting. “What for?”

He takes a deep, open-mouth breath but finds no words to carry out the exhale and lets it drop to the floor in a heavy sigh. Feet move over the flagstones. He looks up to find her by the divan. She’s in a simple robe, her feet bare and her hair falling over one shoulder in glossy waves.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

He nods, pulling up his legs to make room for her as she sits down at the side usually reserved for him. “I never allowed myself to think much about what happened. It was too much and I pushed it away. But those men… They brought it all back and after we left the inn, I barely remember what happened. It was the only thing I could think about. What I did wrong. What I should’ve done better. Should I have seen it coming? Should I have killed her sooner?”

“How could you? I don’t think anyone believed she’d burn the whole city. Soldiers, yes, but not innocent men, women, and children. No one saw that coming.”

“I should’ve. I knew what she was. How quick she was to anger. How violence was her answer to everything. I’d seen the way Tyrion acted around her. I just never thought… I really wanted to be wrong too. I think we all did. Because with her men and her dragons, what choice did we have? She could obliterate an army in a quarter of an hour. If someone like that says she’s everyone’s queen, she’s everyone’s queen.” He hangs his head with a sigh. “Those bleeding dragons. They had a connection, her and Drogon. A bond. He knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling…” He looks up at Sansa through the hair falling over his eyes. “Did Bran tell you how I did it? How I killed her.”

“I never asked for details. It didn’t feel right.”

“No. No, it didn’t.” Jon scrubs a hand over his face. “It didn’t feel right at all.”

When he closes his eyes, he’s back there, in a throne room burdened by snow and ashes, returning to a memory he’s tried shaking off whenever it’s hovered at the fringes of his consciousness (and failed the few times he’s kissed a woman, when the memories took over and left him either numb or finding nothing but the taste of servitude and cowardice and death on lips that should taste sweet).

“I didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t even sure I could. A woman, who loved me--and my own blood too? All things I was taught to protect. I thought, if only I could make her see, then I could buy myself some time, find another way, I don’t know… But she was drunk on it. The victory. She wanted more and Winterfell would be first. I knew that. She hated you. And you, Bran, and Sam, you knew too much. You mattered too much. She’d burn you without warning and tell me it was necessary. It was my only chance. She was alone, vulnerable, too happy to be suspicious. But Drogon was near and if she did suspect something--anything at all--he would know. So I--”

That awful taste returns, of blood and ashes, of death. The pitcher still stands on the table. By now the ale is warm and flat, but he puts the pitcher to his lips and drinks it anyway, drinks long and deep, ale trickling down his chin, until it’s all gone. He exhales sharply. Wipes his mouth with thumb and forefinger. Confesses, at last.

“She took my hand and put it to her cheek and I let her. She kissed me and I let her. I didn’t do it the way Father taught us. I didn’t sentence her to death and look her in the eye and ask for her final words before executing her. I didn't do it the old way. The right way. No, I kissed her so I could stab her in the heart. What kind of man does that?”

He looks at Sansa almost defiantly. Juts his chin out, dares her to judge him. (Invites her to it.) But she only meets his gaze calmly, her own full of empathy.

“A man who has no choice,” she says. “Her dragon--”

“Aye, her dragon.” Teeth clenched, he shakes his head. “Doesn’t make me less of a kinslayer or less of an honorless coward. If there are gods after all, old or new, I’ve cursed myself forever.”

“I fed Ramsay to his own dogs.” She holds her chin the same way he did and it almost makes him smile. "What does that make me?"

“He deserved what he got and worse.”

“He did. But it wasn't the old way. It was cruel. I never thought myself capable of doing such a thing, and I certainly know Father wouldn't have approved, and yet I did it. And I enjoyed it. So what does that make me? Over the years, I’ve asked myself whether it made me a monster too. I still haven’t found an answer to that question.”

“It doesn’t make you a monster.

“Well, if I’m not one, then neither are you.”

“It’s different.”

“Yes, because I enjoyed it and you didn’t. So I ask you again: am I a monster? Am I a beast rather than the perfect princess in the tower? Or am I neither, just like you are neither, because life is more complicated than a song.” She licks her lips and leans in closer. “We both did horrible things, it’s true, but we did them to people who hurt people so that they could never hurt anyone else ever again. So, to me, it doesn’t matter how you did it. You saved us that day--all of us--and that’s all that matters. Maybe those men in White Harbor can’t see that, but I can. You saved Westeros from burning.”

“Not all of it. Not King’s Landing.”

She regards him for a beat; her eyes are the softest blue he’s ever seen. “I’m no stranger to what ifs. Ever since Father died, I’ve played that game many times. What if I had tried to kill Joffrey again and succeeded. What if I had left with the Hound when I had the chance. What if I had pushed Littlefinger out the Moon Door. What if I had trusted Brienne sooner. What if I had stolen a pair of scissors and shoved them in Ramsay’s eye. What would’ve changed? Who would’ve lived? What would I have saved? My maidenhead? Rickon? Mother? It’s a game you can’t win; there are no answers. Only regret and guilt and pain.”

She takes his hands, still looking into his eyes, and hers are all he can see. The blue of his dreams that keeps his nightmares from swallowing him whole.

“Bran always says the past is written,” she says. “That the ink is dry. We’ve made our mistakes and we’ll learn from them. That’s all we can do now. We learn--and we do what we can to make sure something like this _never_ happens again.”

“That’s what he’s trying to do. In the valley.”

“And you’ve promised him our help. We’ll spend the rest of our lives helping him--and we’ll make sure our children and their children help him too.”

“Aye, we will.” Jon squeezes her hands, smiling gratefully to her. “Thank you. For listening.”

“I’m glad you told me. When I suspected you were afraid of her, I never realized it was this bad. I didn’t realize you were petrified.”

 _Petrified_. That’s the word for it, isn’t it. So scared he remained passive when he learned as a boy that moving meant surviving. He didn’t even bide his time. He just… allowed himself to be petrified like a defenseless child instead of becoming what he had trained to become, what everyone expected him to be: a hero; the shield that guards the realms of men.

The question leaves his lips without his permission. “Do you see me differently now?” 

Her _yes_ is a slap in the face, a punch in the gut, a dagger in the heart. His stomach turns and now he’s the one slipping out of her grip, even wiping his hands on his thighs as he moves away, but she’s there instantly, finding his hands, grounding him again, and he sinks back down on the divan and listens.

“When I was in King’s Landing,” she says, gaze locked with his, “Joffrey used any excuse he could to hurt me. He even had me beaten when Robb won his battles. And the people around me--especially the women--told me I had to be better. I had to stop provoking him. It was always my fault--mine or Robb’s. A king is never at fault. Littlefinger liked blaming me for things too, but he was sneaky about it. Sometimes I didn’t realize until long after. And Ramsay. He liked his little games... Any pain was good pain. I don’t know whether they do it so they don’t have to carry their own guilt, or because they like seeing others buckle under it, but I do know it’s something people like that do. People like _her_. They make you feel guilty over the way they hurt you or the way they hurt others so you're too busy blaming yourself to hold them accountable. And they use their power over you to make you do things you don’t want to do. Staring at your father’s decapitated head. Filling their ears with flattery. Accepting kisses that make your skin crawl. Marrying a monster. Even pushing away those trying to help. They remove your choice over and over until you feel you have none. Until you just go along and let things happen because it’s safer that way.

“I do see you differently now, because I finally understand what I should’ve known right away. I, more than anyone, should’ve seen what she was doing to you. I’m so sorry, Jon.” Sansa holds his hands a little tighter, tears brimming in her eyes. “It didn’t occur to me that a woman--especially not a beautiful woman like her--could make a man feel the way men have made me feel for most of my life. I was hurt and I let it blind me and instead of helping you I made everything that much harder and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t see you and how you were hurting.” A few tears spill over when she blinks, painting sunlit lines on her cheeks. “If only I had did everything I could to save you sooner. If only I had--”

“Oh, Sansa.” He cups her cheek, brushing away the tears with his thumb. “Didn’t we just agree to stop poking at old bruises?”

“We did,” she says with a watery laugh.

“Then let’s stop. We have to move forward now.”

She nods, still laughing a little, and he feels himself smiling too. Feels himself moving on instinct and cupping the nape of her neck instead of her cheek and leaning in closer and closer--and tipping his head just in time to kiss her on the forehead.

His heart beats wildly in his chest and he pulls back a little too fast, smiles a little too wide, breathes a little too hard. “Breakfast? I’m starving.”

“Yes,” she says, wiping cheeks that are as flaming red as his own must be. “Breakfast.”

* * *

In the days following his confession, in quiet moments when his hands work and his mind wanders, it comes back to him. The things he shared in his moment of weakness. How he became a weeping little boy in need of a mummy. The memory douses him in water so scalding it steals his breath for a moment. Leaves his skin red and raw. The impulse to bristle around her returns to him; he fights it. 

The impulse to crawl back into her arms returns too. Often.

Sometimes he’ll glance at her and think, if only she’d offer. If only she’d spread her arms wide and smile in invitation. If only she’d let him rest for a spell and sing a sweet lullaby that chases away the dark, nagging voices within him.

If only she’d read his mind.

* * *

“Are you drawing me?” she asks one day. 

Today they’re in the godswood, sprawled on a blanket spread out beneath their heart-tree. Iselinde has rolled over on her belly and works her chubby little legs, as if she’s practicing crawling. She’s a bit young for it still, but he remembers Rickon was about this age when he started. Something that shocked Lady Stark, whose many children before him had all had the good sense of not starting until their seventh month! 

“No,” Jon says and closes the notebook. “I’m not drawing you.”

(The likeness is terrible.)

“You’re such a bad liar,” Sansa says, laughing, and returns her attention to her embroidery.

She’s almost done with the dress. Her nameday is almost here. Her gift is almost ready. The gift that’s more for all of them, as a family, is almost ready too. He’d hoped to be done sooner, but despite her comforting words, despite what they agreed on, his mind doesn’t give a fuck once he’s asleep.

When he's asleep, nightmares haunt him again. When he's asleep, nightmares mock the man who once believed he was different from the rest only to be proven painfully wrong. No matter how happy his days make him, they can’t erase his guilt entirely. It’ll linger his whole life, he thinks, the way grief does.

He doesn’t mourn the people he lost every day, but sometimes he’ll sit at the mere and think back on when Ned taught him and Robb how to fish right there, or he’ll head down into the crypts to light candle after candle after candle after candle, or he’ll see a woman with a bow and arrow or a boy who looks a little bit like Olly, or hear a droll joke that sounds just like something Edd would say, and his heart will ache as if squeezed by a gauntleted hand.

It’ll be like that, he thinks. The pain never goes away; it just smarts less frequently. 

“What is it?” Sansa asks.

He focuses his faraway eyes on her. “What?”

“For a while now, you’ve kept looking at me… I don’t know. As if something’s weighing on you and you’re trying to share it with me, but you never do. You just keep… looking.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Jon, I’m trying not to jump to conclusions. I’d appreciate your help.”

He rubs his eyebrow. “It’s… I can’t ask it of you. It’s not right.”

She bows her head, pressing the cobalt blue fabric of the nameday dress to her chest. “You’re getting frustrated. I thought it was something like that. Jon, I--”

“No. It’s not that. Not that I wouldn’t… Uh, obviously I…” He clears his throat. “It’s not sexual, but it’s…” His gaze skirts her chest. “It’s…”

“Oooh.” She folds the dress into her sewing basket. “You want to _cuddle_.”

“It was nice,” he murmurs, thumbing at the binding of his notebook. “Never really been held like that before.”

“Oh, Jon,” she says and that’s enough for him to feel barely three years old. “Do you want to feel little for a moment?”

He loses the fight against the impulse to bristle so quickly it’s pathetic. “No,” he says, turning away from her. Sulking.

“I like to feel little too sometimes,” she says in her softest voice. “Protected. Why would it be different for you?”

He shrugs.

She’s quiet for a breath, then: “Your daughter has exerted herself.”

He glances at Iselinde; she’s fallen asleep in the middle of her not-quite crawling. Sansa turns her gently over on her back, and Lamb curls up around her like the good girl she is. The sight erases Jon’s sullen mood entirely, and he shares a tender smile with Sansa.

“Our daughter is asleep and I have no meetings, nowhere to be, and the weather is lovely… What do you say?”

“You don’t have to,” he mumbles, face fire-hot.

“But what if I want to? What if I thought it was nice too?”

“You did?” He thumbs at his notebook again. “I thought you preferred me strong.”

Her brows draw together. “But you were. Perhaps not strong the way men mean it, but you were strong to me. Showing your pain, how much it hurts. it’s not an easy thing to do. At least it’s not easy for me. But even so, we don’t have to be strong _all_ the time. No one does. Not even you.”

She does hold her arms out, then, even smiles in invitation. Jon secures his pen to the notebook by binding a leather string around it, and lays it aside. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel as if you have to.”

“I don’t,” she says, wiggling her fingers as she lies down on her back. “I’d love to hold you.”

He crawls closer. Her hair is a copper halo gleaming in the sun. Her nose is spring-kissed and freckle-strewn. Her eyes are the warm green-blue of waters he’s only ever seen in paintings. He lowers himself over her, his shadow spilling over her face. She looks up at him, wide-eyed and still. Waiting.

He could steal a kiss so easily. She would even let him, he thinks, but he doesn’t want her to let him. He wants her to _want_ it. Want him. 

When he lies down and molds himself around her body, it takes her a heartbeat to wind her arms around him. As if she truly expected him to steal that kiss. (As if she were disappointed he didn’t.) So he does steal one--a tiny little brush of lips against her throat that makes her breath hitch--before settling in with his head pillowed on her shoulder. 

She returns the gesture by kissing the crown of his head. 

“Do you want me to sing something,” she murmurs into his hair, already twining it around her fingers.

“I’d love for you to sing something.”

It’s only then, when he relaxes beneath her fingers soothing lines along his back and listens to her hushed singing mingling with bird chirps and wind whispers, that he remembers what she said when they talked about the future and their promise to Bran.

Jon was too upset that morning for those words to register in his mind, but now they return to him crystal clear and it’s easy to be confident then. It’s easy to think she will kiss him one day. One day soon.

Jon smiles into the crook of her neck and holds her a little closer.

She said children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I spent all morning editing this chapter--only to lose it all to a power outage right as I was about to click "post" because I had, for once, been careless enough to edit it on ao3 when I always always use google docs. And so I spent the rest of the day trying to remember all the changes I had made on practically every paragraph. FUN TIMES. I have literally worked on this chapter all day. From 8 am until now, past 11 pm. Yes, I've taken breaks. Yes, I stilled played minecraft with my kid for an hour before bed as we do every evening. Yes, I tucked them in and all that. But yeah. Idk why I'm telling you all this. I guess I just feel both sorry for myself and a little proud that I DID IT. Because this was an emotionally draining chapter as is, and setbacks like this generally just make me want to lie down and sleep, and when this happened I just... But I guess I found some fighting spirit somewhere deep inside and went straight back to work. After some complaining ofc. To anyone who would listen. So thank you to those kind people. And, also, huge thanks to my husband who took care of everything and let me write. Not that he'll read this but... Anyway. Some improvements were lost forever bc my memory is _shit_. Others were improved upon further, which I'm gonna take as a win. Mostly, it stayed roughly the same or so I'm telling myself. All in all, I hope you enjoyed lol


	30. In Sun-Dappled Waters

Whenever the weather allows it, they sup beneath the open sky. The cook grills meat and vegetables and mushrooms, braziers warm them once the sun sets, and lanterns illuminate the godswood with the help of the moon and stars above. Outside their circle of red-gold glow, the direwolf pack waits for nibbles, their eyes shining copper and silver in the dark. Even Shy accepts pets and scratches now, and licks Jon and Sansa’s fingers happily after receiving his treats (but he skitters off when a maid pours them after-supper tea and serves honey cakes still warm from the oven).

“How about Wulfe the Hunter?” Sansa asks, breaking off a piece of her cake. “Do you know that story?”

Jon shakes his head and sips his tea. “It’s your turn to start.”

She hums, licking crumbs off her lips. “He was… a father. Needing to provide for his family in winter. A long, dark winter…”

With Iselinde snug in the wrap, Sansa leans back to watch the constellation as she and Jon weave a new story together. As she speaks of cold winter days, the raw summer night air creeps under her skirts as if to remind her that, in the North, snow is never far away. Shivering, she pulls the shawl tighter around her shoulders and leans away from their daughter to drink the warm milky tea.

“If you’re that cold,” Jon says, “we should head inside.”

“The story isn’t finished.”

“It’s not going anywhere. We’ll continue another night.” He pulls her to her feet and rubs heat back into her upper arms. “It’s getting late anyway. Can’t have you dozing off in your mountain of lemon cakes tomorrow.”

“I’m getting a _mountain_ of lemon cakes?”

“Maybe,” Jon drawls with a smile and leads her back to the Keep.

His hand is so warm around hers, so strong and solid, all calloused and work-rough from hammering and sawing and riding and sparring. Sometimes, when he returns from the mere and rolls his shoulders with a groan, an offer lays on her tongue, ready to be uttered. But something holds her back, traps those words behind her teeth, swallows them down. Bare skin and oils and kneading hands… It has seemed too rash a step to her--and straight to a place from which they cannot return.

She has a dark voice of her own, she supposes. One that whispers _what if_ even now that everything seems so perfect. Especially now. He finally treats her the way she’s always dreamed of and it seems almost too sweet. Too sweet to believe. (Too sweet to give up.)

“Well, good night,” he says, leaning a shoulder against the wall outside her chamber, still holding her hand and making no effort to leave despite his words. “See you tomorrow. Bright and early.”

“I don’t get to sleep in on my nameday?”

“It’s not your actual nameday, though, is it?”

“Not literally, no.” She moves a step closer, just to keep holding his hand comfortably. “So what are we doing? On my not-nameday.”

“You already know: a day at the mere.”

“Yes, but on your nameday, you taught me how to fish. Am I getting another lesson? Or are we… I don’t know, bird watching? Insect catching--or swimming! It’s summer. Are we swimming? Should I have Kari pack towels?”

“ _Can_ you swim?”

“What do you think?”

“How should I know? I wasn’t exactly allowed in the godswood when you girls played in the pond.”

“I’m a Tully. That would make me half fish. Of course I can swim.”

“What”--Jon pinches her skirts and pulls them up to reveal her ankles--”you got a fishtail hidden under there?”

She swats his hand away with a breathy smile. (She still holds his other hand firmly.) “Perhaps you ought to see Maester Wolkan if your memory is so poor you’ve already forgotten what’s beneath my skirts.”

Jon huffs out a laugh, eyes glittering. They’re almost amber in the torchlight. Leaning in, he speaks in a voice low and smooth, “I haven’t forgotten, Sansa.”

His voice runs down her spine like hot honey and spreads through her body until her blood simmers and sings. A clever retort should come to her, but the heat in his gaze arrests her wit. Arrests her. All she can do is stare and breathe in the scent of summer night clinging to his skin and hair, all lukewarm air filled with the promise of tomorrow’s dew. All she can do is wait and wait and wait for something to change, for something to happen. She nearly jolts when he finally leans closer, leaving the beam of light spilling from the torch. His eyes are black as midnight, now, deep as chasms; her stomach surges as though she falls over the edge and plummets into those depths. Winterfell has never been more silent. She hears nothing but her unsteady breaths and her pulsating blood and the rustle of cloth against cloth when Jon moves closer still and--

Her breath expels itself as if it were an arrow nocked when he bows his head to kiss the chestnut tufts of their daughter’s hair. Sansa sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and bites down on it, hard.

“Good night, Sansa.”

He turns his back to her and vanishes into his room; she sags against the door, the handle cool against her palm. 

Yes, there’s a voice inside her that reminds her to be wary of things too good too sweet, but her heart yearns and yearns--and her gut… Her gut tells her to leave Iselinde with Kari, knock on Jon’s door, and take him in every way she knows before leading him back to the bed that should be _theirs_ not hers. 

He knows, Sansa thinks, the way frustration is building within her. He’s the smug creator of it. For a while, now, she’s suspected he’s seducing her in a painfully slow pace. That he keeps looking at her as if he’ll kiss her only to leave her wanting for he plans on making tomorrow special in more ways than one. That, after days and days of innocent touches and sinful looks, her resolve will have grown dry and brittle beneath a want hotter than summer sun and crumble at even featherlight pressure. She’ll be pliant in his arms. Too hungry to listen to anything but the greedy voice within. He’ll love her beneath the stars, then, and it’ll be beautiful and magical and the best night of her life--and then they’ll slip into a comfortable rut where he stops trying--

She exhales and fixes her reflection with a firm stare. “Stop overthinking,” she says and holds her own gaze like a mother admonishing her child, willing her to obey.

Letting Kari rest, Sansa undresses herself, changes Iselinde, and tucks her into bed. Lamb curls up on Jon’s side, her amber fur colored almost silver by the moonlight spilling in through the open shutters. It’s full, the moon. Strong and bright. Sansa takes out her nameday dress and hangs it up by the window just to inspect it one last time.

She never consciously abandoned her design. When she sat down with needle and thread that first day, she was fully intent on filling the cobalt canvas with northern flowers in pastels to soften the bold color that’s as blue as a peacock’s neck. But inspiration seized her hand, picked thread of white and yellow and green and red, of gold and silver too, and stitched a song into that brilliant blue.

Will Jon understand, though, or will he see only flowers and greenery where she sees meaning? His behavior lately would suggest the former, but she doesn’t actually know whether this romantic side of him is true or something he wears like scented oil on his pulse points to entice and beguile because he knows she’s still, at heart, the little girl who dreamed of courtship. 

As sweet as it has been, will it leave a bitter taste in her mouth if it ends the moment she gives herself to him?

Sansa sighs, heavily. She’s doing it again, always looking for the silver-sharp glint of a hook in the lure. Yearslong habits are difficult to break. She ghosts her fingertips over the embroidery decorating the bodice. It’s not impossible, though, breaking bad habits. As she and Jon have moved through their mating dance like shy maids, they’ve slowly and surely learned to flow as one rather than stepping on each other’s toes accidentally (deliberately).

Trusting is a decision and she’s already made it. He loves her, the true her, and it’s time she showed him she believes it.

Abed, she closes her eyes, lets that truth settle in her heart, and drifts into dreams of sweet kisses beneath the stars. 

* * *

The lilac bushes in the godswood always bloom around her nameday. The bouquet Jon brings her the next morning still glitters with dew and fills the chamber with the fragrance of summer. Smiling, she pinches off ivory sprigs and tucks them into her braid before giving him a little twirl. He watches her wordlessly, but the adoring look in his eyes says what his lips do not. And when she blushes beneath his gaze, Jon looks so besotted she wonders how she could ever doubt his affection for she has seen that look before, many times. The only difference now is that he doesn’t bother covering it up once she notices his flustered state (which results in her being flustered too).

When they arrive at Joardiswater, servants have already prepared the low hill overlooking the water. A pavilion is erected between two clusters of birches. Cushions and a table buckling with food wait for them in the shade of a mighty chestnut tree on the cusp of blooming. Her stomach rumbles at the sight of it, and she fills her plate with food both for her and Iselinde. Iselinde’s interest in what her mother and father eat has grown lately, and the past few days Sansa has let the baby steal finger food off her plate. Pear peeled and sliced, and parsnip sticks cooked soft have quickly become her favorites. Sansa has barely settled in before a chubby little hand waves about her plate and manages to snatch a bit of pear.

“Is it good, sproutling?”

Iselinde looks up at her with round gray eyes, drool running down her chin and staining the bib covering her lace-trimmed cobalt tunic as she sucks on the pear.

Sansa smiles. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“She’s getting so big,” Jon says. “Eating proper food and everything.”

His voice is so choked Sansa looks up at him, surprised, and finds him watching Iselinde with tears in his eyes.

“Are you crying?”

“No,” he says, looking away in a manner that would’ve been sullen if not for the smile quirking his lips.

Laughing under her breath, Sansa tucks into her own food--slices of manchet bread with butter and cheese, salmon cured with salt, sugar, and dill and drizzled with mustard sauce, baked cinnamon apples with dollops of cream whipped into clouds and sweetened with powdered sugar. She eats and eats, thankful that she forwent the corset today.

She forwent her smallclothes too.

He will seduce her tonight and she will let him. Sometimes one must leap despite one’s fears before the ledge becomes so comfortable leaving it seems impossible. And leaping is so much easier without smallclothes. He can just pull up her skirts and find her bare and wet and ready for his fingers and his mouth and his--

“You all right?” Jon peers at her with eyes that surely see right through her. While she’s drifted off in enticing daydreams, he’s stretched out on the cushions in a far too inviting way and that’s not helpful at all. “You’re very quiet.”

“I was admiring your stables,” she says, gesturing behind him with her fork. “You’ve gotten a lot done already.”

“Have we?”

Brow knitted, Jon looks over his shoulder at the building site a good distance away where little more than a laid foundation marks the beginning of his stud farm. When he returns his attention to her, she can’t help but blush. He grins and rolls over on his back, one arm folded beneath his head.

“Once it’s built, I’ll have to go to the true North and catch horses. I’ll be away again.” He lifts his head to squint at her, eyes crinkling. “Perhaps you could come with me. Both of you. Queens need time away from their duties sometimes, don’t they?”

“Wolkan says so. He’s always nagging at me to work less. Well,” she says, smiling down at Iselinde, “he used to, at least.”

“I could show you the river. And my half built cabin.” Jon scratches his neatly trimmed beard. “Perhaps I should finish it so we have somewhere to stay. Can’t let the Queen in the North sleep on the ground or in tents like the rest of us. I’d have to make it bigger, though…”

“I’ve slept in tents before, remember? And I did not complain.”

“I remember. But it’s much colder in the true North.”

“And yet you slept outside.”

“Yeah…” He turns his eyes skyward. “I used to lie in the snow and watch the northern lights and try really hard not to think of you. Wouldn’t allow myself. Told myself you were happy with a handsome husband and a brood of children. But at night… At night, when I dreamed, when I couldn’t stop myself from imagining all the things I truly wanted, it wasn’t with some southern lord you raised a family at Winterfell. It was me.”

“I used to dream the same,” she murmurs, smiling softly at him. “I even had names picked out. Robb for our first born. Then a Rickon. A Lyanna and an Arya--I would always imagine that Arya would be the perfect lady just to annoy her aunt. And then, if we were very lucky and had a fifth: a little Theon.”

Jon sits up, the tender smile he wore as she spoke now turned into a frown. “I am not naming my son Theon.”

Sansa laughs. “It was a fantasy. Everything about those dreams was perfect. I was a naive child who thought, if only you came home, we would forgive and forget everything. Old hurts wouldn’t matter anymore. I’d throw myself in your arms and you’d tell me you loved me and we’d marry in the godswood and have lots of children and everyone would return home and we’d be happy, all of us. It would feel as though everything was right again, like the gods intended before our future was taken from us.”

“You still believe that? That Father and Lyanna would’ve arranged a match.”

“Not really. They probably would’ve found you a pretty southern lady. Suppose we could always ask Bran next time we see him. Perhaps he can see what should’ve been.”

“I don’t know… I used to think the same, after Sam told me the truth. I thought it was supposed to be you and me, but that people made the wrong choices and you got Joffrey instead and then everything turned to shit. But it’s not anymore, is it? Shit. It’s not shit at all.”

“Very poetic.”

“Never claimed I’m a poet,” Jon says, laughing.

It’s good to see him laugh. It’s good to see him sprawled over plush cushions like a cat lapping up the warm rays of summer sun without a care in the world. He laughs often now, smiles often, the sporadic sullenness tongue-in-cheek more often than not. And as she looks at him, those sweet-as-cake dreams don’t seem so idealized after all. The old hurts will never truly go away, no, but they’ve become so much easier to bear for they bear them together.

“What?” he says.

“I never realized how similar our dreams were. Perhaps we _were_ meant to be.”

“Doesn’t really matter anymore. I don’t need to ask Bran what should’ve been or could’ve been. Everything that happened, the good and the bed, it led us here.” Jon looks at their daughter, who now stands among the cushions on all fours, rocking back and forth as if the motion will propel her into crawling any moment. “It all led to her and I wouldn’t change it for the world.” 

His simple words evoke a misty sentimentality within Sansa that waters his crooked smile into a full-blown grin and makes him tease her about being the one crying now, and she gives him a playful swat to shut him up. But Jon’s reflexes are too quick for her. He catches her hand and she loses her balance, falling forward with a gasp. Right into his arms. He flips her easily, cradling her with so much affection in his gaze it blurs the rest of the world into a blue-green sea she’s entirely lost in. Without the corset, she feels the press of each fingertip against her ribs, feels the heat of his palm against her waist. His eyes leave hers, wandering down to her lips, to her throat, to her chest. A faint smile curls his lips and maybe he does see it, the song woven between the threads. His thumb brushes the underside of her breast, as faint as his smile, and maybe all he sees are her breasts. 

(She can’t say she minds either way.)

With a sharp breath, Jon slides out from under her, moving to his feet and pulling her up with him so quickly pinpricks of light dance before her eyes and she has to grab his shoulder to steady herself while her vision returns to normal.

“All right?”

“Rose too quickly, that’s all.”

“Are you well enough to receive your first gift?”

“I get more than one?”

“Well,” Jon says, “the first one is for the three of us. But she’s too little yet so it’ll be just you and me today.”

As if in on his plans and waiting for her cue, Kari swoops in then and scoops up Iselinde and perches her on her hip. Then she takes her little hand and tells the babe to wave to her mother and father, but Iselinde finds gnawing on her hand much more interesting than waving it. So they kiss her pear juice sticky cheeks and then walk down the slope toward the mere while Jon stammers out excuses about how the gift isn’t a proper gift in such an adorable way she almost grabs him by his tunic and kisses him right then and there.

“Well, there she is,” he says.

At the shoreline lies a boat upside down like a glossy joardis beetle nestled among reed and water horsetail. Jon flips it over as easily as he flipped her and even that simple thing, the graceful way he moves, helps in building the anticipation for tonight when he’ll finally--

Sansa clears her throat. “Did you build this?”

Rolling up the sleeves of his tunic, Jon nods.

“You built a _boat_.”

“A small boat.” He picks up the oars and nods at the boat. “How about a turn about the mere?”

She pretends to eye it warily. “I don’t know… How good of a builder are you, really? Will it sink?”

“Only one way to find out.”

He holds out his hand; she takes it and lets him help her into the boat where she sits down primly on one of the two seats. Once she’s comfortable, he pushes the boat into the water and leaps into it effortlessly. The fabric of his breeches strains over his thighs as he settles in, and the fabric of his tunic strains over his shoulders when he begins to navigate the boat out of the reeds and onto the open water. Yesterday, a white raven carried news from the Citadel about a tempest possibly rolling in over the North at the end of the week. But today the skies are clear and as blue as cornflowers. Soon sweat glimmers on Jon’s forehead. Releasing one oar briefly, he unlaces his tunic with deft fingers. Sansa licks her lips, watching more and more skin get exposed until Jon clears his throat pointedly and she tears her eyes off him and the stupid smirk on his stupid face.

“Does she have a name?” she says in a voice much too husky for her liking.

“Not yet. Reckoned you can name her.”

Sansa hums, stroking the smooth upper edges of the hull. She’s a small and sleek and glossy thing, this boat, like the tiny fish darting to and fro beneath the surface. “What are those called?” she asks, pointing at a school.

“Minnows.”

“Can you eat them?”

“They’re mostly used for bait.”

Sansa smiles at that, hands still on the edges of the boat (eyes stealing glances of Jon’s arms as he rows). “The Minnow,” she says with a nod. “Are we fishing today?”

“Hadn’t planned on it. I thought we’d just… row? I don’t know.” He watches two swans glide past them, several arm’s lengths away. “The book didn’t say.”

“The book?”

“Huh?” He looks back at her. “Oh. Yeah.” He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “When I was building my fourth cabin, I think it was, I read this book--you would’ve loved it. Some lord in love with a lady. He started courting her and they spent a lovely afternoon rowing across the lake outside her father’s keep. I don’t know.” Another shrug. “Sounded nice. Reckoned you’d like it.”

“Courting?” she says. “Is that what you’re doing?”

He gives her a lopsided grin. “Thought I was rowing.”

“You never said anything.”

“I’ve said plenty. I’ve also said I’ll stop if you tell me to.”

“Do you want to stop?”

His eyebrows draw together. “What?”

“The Jon I remember always scoffed at romance and courtship and… Jon.” She looks at him kindly. “If you’re just doing this because you think it’s what I want you to do, that I won’t say yes unless you do... I do want to be courted, it’s true, but not out of obligation.”

“It’s not.” Jon lets the oars rest in their crutches. “I know we might never marry. I know the North might never accept me as your husband. And, after White Harbor, I get it. Believe me. But, Sansa, I don’t _need_ to marry.” He leans forward, looking deeply into her eyes. “I know I said I wanted it--and of course I do--but, as far as I’m concerned, we’re already married. We’ve exchanged our vows. I aim to keep mine; I trust you’ll keep yours.”

“Then why are you courting me?”

He smiles, a tinge of pink to his cheek. “Aye, I scoffed at it, because people, especially Theon, loved reminding me of the fact that I’d never have it. It was easier to pretend I didn’t want it, but I did. I always did. You’re not the only one who grew up dreaming of courtship.”

“Oh. Well,” she says, “I suppose if this always was your dream, I can indulge you for a little while longer.”

“Oh, you can indulge me, can you?”

“Yes. As a kindness.”

“And here I was, thinking you just like watching me row.”

Her mouth falls open with a gasp.

“Couldn’t help but notice.” He grabs the oars and rows with big, exaggerated movements. “You’ve been admiring me. Staring at my arms. Would you like me to take off my tunic? I can always pretend there’s a hole in it in need of mending.”

Sansa purses her lips to hide a smile. “I’m not the only one who’s been staring,” she says, gesturing at her chest.

Jon fires off a grin. “Just admiring the needlework. It’s really good. If this queen thing doesn’t work out for you, you could always open a little shop in White Harbor.”

She arches a brow. “Are you implying my embroidery skill is the most intriguing thing about me?"

“I’m doing no such thing. Your Grace is a very intriguing woman. And pretty, of course. And generous too. For indulging me.”

“Don’t call me that,” she says.

“Of course not, Your Grace. Forgive me, Your Grace.”

Holding his gaze, she slowly dips her fingers into the cool water and splashes a spray of droplets on him with a flick of her wrist.

Jon makes a great show of wiping them from his eyes. “Did Your Grace just declare war?” 

His voice is dark enough she shivers despite the summer heat.

“I was merely punishing your insolence.”

Pushing down the corners of his mouth, Jon nods while looking out over the mere and pondering his retort. She holds her head smugly and brushes out invisible wrinkles in her skirt while she waits--

Ice cold water slams into her face. She sucks in a breath, holding out her arms and staring down at her drenched chest. “Jon! You made me all wet!”

“Despite my poor memory, I seem to recall I always was very good at that.”

“Jon!”

He blinks at her, innocent as a boy. “What?”

She presses a delicate hand to the soaked fabric clinging to her chest. “You should watch your mouth, my lord."

“A bit rich coming from you, considering the things I've seen you do with your mouth."

A scandalized noise escapes her. His grin is filthy. Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, she runs her eyes over him appraisingly. Then she releases her lip, slowly, and crooks a finger at him. The mischief runs off Jon in an instant. Eyes wide, he swallows and straightens up. The boat rocks gently beneath them as he inches toward her. Once he’s close enough, she hooks her finger under the neckline of his tunic and pulls him closer closer closer--and pushes him, hard.

He topples over the edge of the boat and hits the surface with a splash, water raining over her and the boat and the waves rippling the mere. Then he resurfaces and, treading water, tosses back the wet curls hanging over his eyes. They’re dark, those eyes, and sparkling like the water sparkles under the sun. 

“You looked like you could use some cooling off,” she says.

Jon’s shoulders bounce with a quiet chuckle. “Yeah, I’m not alone in that, am I?”

“What are you going to do, flip the boat over? You wouldn’t.”

“I think you’ve forgotten something, Sansa.” He rises, then, the water barely reaching his chest. “A mere isn’t very deep.”

Strong, wet arms close around her and pull her into the cold water. She shrieks out a peal of laughter and clings to the heat of him, her arms tight around his neck. Grinning, he dips her deeper and deeper and she lets out another noise somewhere between a giggle and a panicked scream.

“Now, where’s that fishtail,” he says, eyeing her skirts floating around her legs like a flower in bloom.

“No tail. Just plain old legs.” She gives a little kick and frees one leg from the swaths of blue skirts. “See?”

She expects him to play along, to say they’re neither plain nor old, but Jon only follows the line of her leg up her thigh, and trails his eyes over her waist and chest, where he lingers for a beat at her nipples that are hard enough to be visible even beneath the embroidery. A drop of water clings to his bottom lip. He removes it with a swipe of his tongue and snaps his hooded eyes to hers; the want in them is so blatant, heat surges through her body and pools where the surface licks at her whenever the water moves around them.

She knows he won’t kiss her. She knows he’s saving it and that tonight will be beautiful and so worth the wait--and still she’s disappointed when the hold on her loosens and he lets her slide out of his arms to stand opposite him. She knows he won’t kiss her--but still she keeps one arm around his neck while her other hand comes to rest over his chest. His heart beats so hard she can feel it against her fingers. A quick rhythmic pulse that matches her own and she doesn’t care about starry nights or perfect first kisses or carefully planned seductions. She doesn’t care what her head says for every other part of her wants him so badly she’s trembling--and he’s trembling too, his heart racing like a river beneath her touch, and still he stays passive. As passive as she is and has been and oh. _Oh_. 

Words spoken a year ago, almost to the date, come back to her. Words she used as a shield to protect herself without ever realizing how they must’ve seemed a sharp blade to him that cut the stem of his hope and threw it away before it had started to grow in earnest. Words she needs to replace.

“Jon,” she says, softly, “I want you to kiss me. If you want to.”

He breathes in as if it’s the first real breath he’s taken in ages, sagging forward as he exhales and resting his forehead against hers. His hot breath wafts over her parted lips, his nose brushes hers in a loving nuzzle, and his hand comes up to cup the nape of her neck, his fingers fingers tangling in the damp mess of her braid. For a breath, two, three, he stands there, perfectly still, and the world around them stills too. The water calms. The wind quiets. The birds and the insects who’ve provided them with the thrumming music of nature finally hold their breaths and wait.

Gently, Jon tilts her head down and places the softest of kisses to her forehead, to the arch of her eyebrow, to her temple, to the corner of her eye, to the high of her cheekbone, to the apple of her cheek, to the hollow beneath. A wetter kiss marks the corner of her jaw and more kisses follow along her jawline, closer and closer to her mouth and she can’t wait any longer and turns her head and meets his lips--

He tastes of summer wind and water, of cinnamon apples and salt. With a little whimper, she presses closer to him, slides her hand up to nestle in the curls at his neck, opens up readily when he parts his lips and touches the seam of hers with the tip of his tongue. Each swipe stirs her blood. The cold water bothers her none; her body is brimming with red hot want and when he releases her lips to kiss her neck, she lets out a moan so unladylike, so needy, she would’ve been embarrassed had she been even dimly aware of anything but the way he feels.

“I want you,” she breathes out, fingers digging into his hip to get closer to what grows harder between them. “ _Please_.”

Jon releases her neck with a wet sound. “What? Here?”

Along the water’s edge grows a big willow tree with its branches dipping into the water, like a maiden washing her long green hair. Their eyes meet. Sansa knows hers sparkle just as much as his do. Smiling, they dive beneath the surface and chase one another in the water like salmons swimming upstream until they rise beneath the domed canopy that shields them from view.

And there, behind a veil of willow, in northern waters sun-dappled and cool, they come together at last. Jon moves inside her like the ocean kissing the shore, a steady to and fro that washes over her in waves of pleasure. Her lips find the lobe of his ear and nip, kiss, whisper. _I love you._ Soft as a sigh. _I love you._ Husky and choked. _I love you, Jon_ \--and then his lips find hers again and he kisses her so deeply, so desperately it pulls at something within her until it snaps and she’s floating in the sweetest bliss she’s ever known. Everything around her becomes as muddled as the waters they’re stirring. She knows only the feel of him, the scent of him, as he gently lays her down on the grassy shoreline and kisses her and touches her and loves her to another completion while she clings to him as if he’s the only thing keeping her anchored in this world.

“Did you peak?” she slurs, closing her eyes against the sun playing across her face through the foliage.

His reply is a throaty chuckle in her ear followed by countless little kisses to her jaw and neck. His reply is a murmured _I love you_ into her wet skin, into her ear, into the wind that whispers in the leaves, in the long summer grass, in the reeds hiding fish and birds and insects.

With Jon’s lips still moving over her skin, with his body warm and strong next to hers, Sansa relaxes properly for the first time in years, and lets herself drift off into a sleep gilded by afterglow.

* * *

* * *

Sansa is freckled in daylight, a dusting of color across her nose. They shine like flecks of copper in the pink of her flushed skin. Her hair has already begun to dry in curly wisps framing her face. The lilacs she tucked in there this morning lie crushed beneath her head. He picks up one of the sorry-looking things and brushes it over her lips. She crinkles her nose like a bunny. He brushes it over her lips again. She sputters and rubs her lips with her fingers, one eye opening to squint at him before she flutters her eyes open fully.

She looks as dazed and drunk and satisfied as he feels.

“Was I asleep long?”

“I have no idea.”

She smiles and brushes a damp curl from his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. “I thought you were going to seduce me tonight.”

“I wasn’t.”

“No, you were waiting for me, weren’t you? So patient, my Jon.” She cups his cheek, his beard rustling beneath the slide of her fingers. “I’m sorry for taking so long.”

He takes her hand and drops a kiss to her knuckles. “I broke your trust. You needed time.”

“Still. It can’t have been easy.”

“No, can’t say it was.” He curls up beside her on the grassy slope. While she slept, he removed her slippers and his boots. Now the water licks their bare feet while their shoes dry in the sun. “When you told me how you felt once, I…” He props up himself on his elbow, resting his head against his fist. “It’s not that I thought you lied--I didn’t--but what if, I don’t know, you just imagined it. What if you were confused. What if it wasn’t that deep.”

Sansa nods slowly, toying with the laces dangling from his untucked tunic. “What if he only loves me because he thinks he should. What if he loves the idea of me and will be disappointed once he realizes I’m just _me_. What if what if what if. They’re never good, what ifs.”

“I don’t know about that.” He nuzzles her neck. “What if she feels the same?” He nips at the lobe of her ear. “What if she wants what I want.” He kisses the corner of her mouth. “What if all she needs is a little bit of time.”

“You found good what ifs,” she says, slinking a hand behind his neck. 

“Aye. You would’ve told me if I stood no chance, but you didn’t. So I decided to find the good what ifs.”

“Caught that, did you?”

“I did,” he murmurs and lets himself be guided back to her mouth.

Her kisses are as rich and heady as the finest ale, and leave him as drunk too, as thirsty for more. He drinks deeply of them, gorges himself on the taste of summer and love and life, of the feel of her tongue and her lips, of her fingers in his hair and on his body, guiding him back inside her as she wraps her legs around his hips and moves with him in a rhythm they perfected long ago when their bodies ignored what ifs or dark voices and learned one another (loved one another).

Afterwards, he lies boneless by her side, so spent he doubts he’ll ever be able to move again. Sansa, however, sits up and starts examining the skirts of her dress. Her skin prickles in the light breeze and he finds he can move after all, pulling her closer to share with her his warmth.

“I didn’t ruin it, I hope,” he says.

“No, I think it’s fine,” she says, curling into him. “Just needs a wash.”

“Thought you were supposed to wear this at your nameday feast.”

“I was. But inspiration took over. I started with the whi-who--” She frowns adorably. “What was it called? The orchid.”

“Hwydulvar wyrt,” Jon says, laughing, and traces the white-and-red flower at the center of her chest.

Jonquils surround it. Linden leaves too, heart-shaped and pea green. Vines of honeysuckle are woven throughout, winding and whirling around the flowers and leaves. And in the space between, against that brilliant cobalt blue, countless falling stars shine silver and gold. Jon _has_ admired it all day, admired it and let it stoke his hope too for he saw the way she’d sewed their story into the fabric. He saw a song he’ll give her soon in return and, humming, he kisses a star, a leaf, a flower, the hollow of her throat, the angle of her jaw, her mouth, her mouth, her mouth.

* * *

Kari shakes her head at them when they return, a bit damp and entirely disheveled, but she does so with a smile and eyes wet with happy tears. They change into something dry in the pavilion and return to the table beneath the chestnut tree. After the rowing and the love making, and the love making and the rowing, he’s famished and wolves down the skewers of meat and vegetables the cook serves them until his hands are sticky with spices and grease and the waistband of his breeches press against his stomach. Ever the well-mannered lady, Sansa takes delicate bites of her food, but she eats with a healthy appetite too and keeps shooting him little smiles that leaves him grinning like a fool.

As the servants clear the dishes, Jon finds the small box containing her gift. As nervous as he was over the boat (for it wasn’t a proper gift, really), he’s even more so about this. He wipes his damp palms on his breeches and opens it, just to make sure. Just as he’s done a hundred times over since the blacksmith finished it. 

Jon’s never given a woman something like this before, never thought he’d ever have reason to, doesn’t know whether he has the eye for it. Whether it’s good enough at all.

He can barely look at her when she opens it, eyes darting between the dark blue brocade of the cushion beneath him and her small fingers holding the box. The open lid hides her mouth, but he can tell from the sound of her breaths that her lips are parted. That’s a good sign, he hopes.

“This is what you were drawing,” she whispers. “You designed this.”

“Yeah,” he says, twisting a golden cushion tassel between his fingers.

She runs her hand over the bracelet he knows by heart. Swaged from beaten bronze and silver, it forms a grand old tree with heart-shaped leaves, a face carved into one of its branches, and seven small diamonds and thirteen tiny sapphires adorning its trunk and crown.

“It’s our heart-tree,” she says. “And the gems… They look familiar. The shape…” Her brow furrows as she thinks only to smooth out when its meaning dawns on her. “It’s Sindra’s Spire, isn’t it?”

“Aye. That night is special to me. I thought maybe it is to you too.”

“It is. Very special.” Lashes fluttering, she looks up at him with eyes shining with love and unshed tears. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah?”

“I _love_ it.”

She picks it up from the box and puts it on. It’s a big piece, almost as big as an archer’s bracer and unlike anything he’s seen her wear.

“You sure? If you don’t like it, it’s all right. I’ll--”

She silences him with a kiss, soft and tender. “It’s perfect.”

As she rarely wears jewelry anymore, he wasn’t sure about the gift. But when she told him that she sold precious gems and metals to feed her people, he suspected that, perhaps, she sold everything she had except her crown. A discreet chat with Wolkan confirmed it. “She’s gotten pieces, though,” he told Jon, “from suitors and the like. But since you came back, she’s worn them less and less. Suppose it doesn’t feel right now. She’ll love the gift, my lord.”

Despite the maester’s reassuring words, Jon still doubted. Now, though, when he sees the way her eyes glitter brighter even than the jewels reflecting the midday sun, Jon’s worries disappear into the wind. Silently, he vows to himself to give her more. Bracelets and rings and necklaces and whatever else ladies wear. He’ll spoil her rotten.

“Look,” she says, watching their daughter. “I think she’s getting it.”

With Lamb skipping around her, doing her best to show Iselinde how it’s done, Iselinde finally manages to crawl forward three steps before she collapses and bumps her little nose on the ground. A wail pierces the air. They scoop her up and kiss her and comfort her and dry her tears until she’s smiling again. Then she’s back on the ground, ready for another try, with her wolf, and her mother and father cheering her on.

They stay out until Sindra’s Spire glimmers both in the sky and on Sansa’s wrist, the gems catching the light of torches lit around the chestnut tree. The sun sets late in summer. Supper and, perhaps not a mountain, but a pile of lemon cakes were eaten hours ago, now. They should pack up and return to Winterfell, but Shadow is a warm and study backrest behind them, Iselinde sleeps on his chest (belly round from pears and parsnips and mother’s milk, and knees tucked under her with her little bum cradled by his hand), and Lamb lies stretched out over Jon and Sansa’s legs as if she wants them all to stay put for a little while longer--and Jon does too. He can’t think of anything he’d rather do than stay right where he is.

The oddest feeling seizes his heart, then, squeezing it so hard he can’t breathe.

Sansa lifts her head from his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he whispers and for the first time in his life he truly means it. “Not one thing.”

“I know,” she says, laughter in her voice, and pillows her head on his shoulder anew. “It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it.”

Strange, aye. Almost frightening. He tucks his little family closer and stares out into the dark as if challenging invisible horrors to try him. Just try him. He’ll slay anyone who dares even contemplating hurting his family.

“You’ll get used to it,” Sansa murmurs and presses a kiss to his neck. “We both will. We have the rest of our lives to get used to it. But, if it helps: Arya isn’t home. There. I gave you something to worry about. Feel better?”

Jon lets out a breathy chuckle. “A bit, yeah.” He frowns, the chuckle caught in his throat. “No, I don’t. Where _is_ Arya?”

“She’ll come home when she’s ready. Isn’t that what Bran said?”

“Yeah.” Jon sighs deeply. “Shall we finish the story? About Wulfe the Hunter.”

“It’s your turn.”

“You’re just going to fall asleep, aren’t you.”

“There’s a strong possibility,” Sansa mumbles, “but don’t let that stop you.”

“Where were we?”

“He’d just stumbled upon a big old bear.”

“Ah, yes,” Jon says and continues the tale of the father doing his all to provide for and protect his family.

Sansa stays mostly quiet, only adding a detail here and there or asking a question about something or other. Often, she holds out her hand just to look at her bracelet. He doesn’t need to see her face to know that she’s smiling. He just keeps telling the story and, soon, Wulfe the Hunter returns to his family with meat and pelts and acorns to grind into flour for bread.

“Then they feasted,” Jon says, “until they were so fat, they’d last until winter’s end.”

Sansa hums. “They lived happily ever after. Just like Sindra and her farmer.”

“Did you ever ask Wolkan what the real story was?”

“No. The girl in the tower and the man who loved her so much he waited for her invitation instead of barging through the door and claiming her for his own--I like that better than the stories I grew up on. It’s the story I want to tell our children. That one and the one about Lind and Isern, and Wulf the Hunter, and any other stories we’ll create, you and I.”

Jon pulls back so he can look at her. “Did you just say children?”

“Yes,” Sansa murmurs, smiling. “Caught that too, did you?"

"I'm very observant."

"Yes, you are." She brushes a kiss to his lips. "We'll have lots of children. A pack of our own."

She settles back in, then, burrowing her cold nose into the crook of his neck. The lingering summer day heat has cooled by now. But horse and wolf are warm, Iselinde sleeps on, and Sansa is a comfortable weight against his side. So they stay right there for a moment longer, Jon and his girls, in the soft red-gold glow of torches, beneath the silver light of the moon.


	31. Bastards and Broken Things

A gust of wind flings the shutters open. Jon flies out of bed with a muttered curse. Rain hits his face like a spray of ice, the chill prickling his skin into goosebumps. Shutters closed again, he throws a log onto the crackling heart, and hurries back to a bed in which he no longer sleeps--and to the woman lifting the furs and welcoming his already chilled body into her warmth.

He would’ve stubbornly lingered in the icy storm, once. He would’ve avoided even the good kind of warmth. Now he revels in it. It stirs his blood until it thrums with life like spring after a long, harsh winter.

When he killed the Halfhand, something inside Jon went numb. Each time he took a life or forced himself to do things repulsive to him, that numbness ate at the light in him until he felt as cold and empty as the nothingness in which he was briefly trapped. For the longest time, it felt as if part of him was trapped there still. He needed it, though, that numbness, that nothingness, to keep doing what needed to be done. And he needed it still, afterwards, to forget the heat of dragonfire licking at his skin and the stain of ashes weighing on his shoulders.

Sometimes he thought he’d never find the good kind of warmth again. One that heals rather than consumes. Sometimes he thought he’d live the rest of his life in the bleak, bitter cold because feeling would only ever mean pain.

Being proven wrong has never been so sweet.

  
  


Afterwards, when they’re sated and sweaty, both Jon and Sansa know they should get out of bed and return to their guests and yet they linger beneath the furs, in the warmth they share, for just a moment longer.

The tempest came, after all. After sweeping across the North, it settled over Winterfell like a black dome only a few hours into Sansa’s nameday feast. Right as her uncle Edmure had pulled Jon aside for a stern talk about responsibility and intentions and other things he, as Sansa’s oldest living relative, proudly said were his duty to address. Stern words undermined by the jolt he gave at the first rumble of thunder.

For days, the relentless downpour has kept them castle-bound. Yesterday, they were even forced to seek shelter in the crypts when Wolkan, as he fed the birds in the rookery, spied twisters plowing the fields outside Winterfell.

(Neither Sansa nor Gilly complained, but Jon knew from the way they pressed close to their husbands and children (and the wolves), that both remembered with horror the night when the dead came alive.)

Another rumble rolls overhead. Jon counts the pause between thunder and lightning. 

“It’s moving away,” he says.

“Finally.”

“Tired of our guests?”

Sansa smiles. “Perhaps a little. But it’s been lovely too.”

Aye, it has been lovely. A taste of what Winterfell can become in a future where he and Sansa raise a handful of unruly children (and their pet wolves) together. Despite the gloom without, Winterfell has been bright and lively within.

It only took a few days before the children of guests and servants alike went from mildly bored to climbing the walls--and to taking it out on each other. Jon remembered then little Arya growing equally bored during two weeks trapped inside thanks to a seemingly never ending spring storm. He remembered how she would tease poor Sansa until an overcast but rainfree day came, and Sansa flew outside and into the godswood to get away from her mean sister.

It was the day Sansa found their heart-tree. (The day Jon carved a face into its trunk just to see her smile, even if that smile wouldn’t be for him.)

With that memory warming him (and paining him too, as a pang always hits his heart whenever he thinks of his only sister and how she’s been lost to him for over six years), Jon recruited Sam and Meera, and rounded up the children to play hide-the-treasure, hide-and-seek, the-floor-is-quicksand, and other fun games. They even managed to distract them down in the crypts, where the hours grew longer than the shadows and fear pressed down on them like a caved-in roof as they waited for the roar of twisters to fade. Once it finally did, a guard went out to make sure--and then they all sped through the thick curtain of rain and returned to the Keep wet and cold, aye, but unharmed and happy.

“I want to assess the damage,” Sansa says. “It’s stressful, not knowing.”

With the heavy rainfall, it’s been impossible to inspect Winterfell. But now, as if the world heard her and laid a mollifying hand on its sky, the storm calms a little. Curled up, they listen to the steady drumming of rain ease into a pitter-patter, and to the roar of the wind ease into a whisper.

Sansa leaves the bed and, robed, peers through the shutters before pulling them open. “The sun’s peeking through the clouds.”

Naked as on his nameday, Jon joins her by the window and looks out over the sky. The black dome has paled into iron gray with cracks gilded by shafts of sunlight piercing the woolly clouds. It glitters in the drizzle, that light, and paints a colorful arch above the western parts of the godswood.

“Look at the rainbow,” Sansa says. “It’s right above our heart-tree, isn’t it?”

Jon wraps his arms around her. “Aye, I think so.”

“The day I found it, the sun shone down on it. That’s why I picked it. And now a rainbow? It has to be a good sign.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. That it’s lucky?” She leans into him with a content hum. “It feels lucky. Perhaps, once my moonblood returns, we should make love beneath it and make a very lucky babe.”

“That’s an idea,” he says and kisses her shoulder. “Perhaps, once we have Winterfell to ourselves again, we could, I don’t know”--another kiss--“practice? And then I can carry you to the hot springs where we can practice some more.”

“Is that something you’ve fantasized about?”

He breathes an _aye_ against her neck. Purring with pleasure, she turns in his embrace and kisses him in a way that almost has him pulling her back to bed. But it’s late afternoon. Iselinde’s naptime is almost over and their guests must be wondering why their hosts have been missing the past hour or so. And so they clean up and sneak into their chamber. Lamb opens an eye to watch the humans crawl back into the now crowded bed before drifting off again. Iselinde sleeps on, her round tummy rising and falling with steady breaths.

Restlessly, Sansa takes a raven scroll from her nightstand. Jon doesn’t have to look to know it’s one from Davos. While visiting the Iron Bank with the Master of Coin, he thought he spied Arya on a wharf. At that distance (and with his old eyes), he couldn’t be certain, he said, but she vanished so quickly it was as if she’d never been there at all, and that left Davos certain anyway--and it left Jon and Sansa certain too.

“Sometimes I think I should send someone to Braavos. But if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. So what’s the point?”

“Do you think she knows?” Jon asks, quietly. “That it’s why she won’t come home.”

“About us?” Sansa drops the scroll on the nightstand. “Can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind. But, I think, if she knew, she would come home. She would want to meet the latest Stark. No matter how disgusting she finds us--and she probably will. We should prepare ourselves for that.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, rubbing a hand over his jaw.

“But she will love Iselinde,” Sansa says, smiling down at their daughter who has the good timing of waking up with a stretch that gives her an adorable double chin.

“Aye.” Jon blows a raspberry on her belly and laughs when Iselinde laughs. “How could she not?”

* * *

Dressed in hooded wool cloaks to protect them from the cool, damp air, they venture out to assess the potential damage in rather good moods, despite it all. A good mood that only grows when they see that, save a few insignificant signs of the storm and a very muddy courtyard, Winterfell stands unscathed. 

“The gods are smiling down on us, Your Grace,” one of her stewards says.

They might not believe in the gods, but Jon and Sansa still share a smile at that, his hand closing around hers, and then they walk to the godswood to inspect it too. They enter through the eastern gate and walk along the wall running south and separating the godswood from the guesthouse, where they can already hear their guests returning to their rooms with a happy chatter. The wall separating them from the kennels stands strong too, and they take a right turn and walk along the western wall, still happy and smiling, their joined hands swinging between them.

And then they stop.

As if an enormous bear rammed its paw through the wall, a gaping hole gives them a good view of the furrows torn into the ground outside. The destruction within, however, is worse. Much worse. Broken branches lie in heaps across pathways and dangle from crowns of the fortunate trees still standing. The unfortunate trees, however, lie like fallen giants all over the western part of the godswood, their still-wet trunks glistening in the golden sunlight.

Among them is Jon and Sansa’s heart-tree, the ring of flowers broken in two places where each side of the split trunk has fallen in opposite directions.

Sansa’s hand falls lax from his. A cold breeze shakes raindrops from the leaves above and blows the hood from her copper hair. She’s paler than the crushed flowers at her feet.

“The walls must be repaired at once,” she tells her stewards in the voice of a queen.

Then she walks away, her cloak billowing behind her.

Jon, however, stays. 

The linden tree is split, aye, but it’s a clean split. Both halves of the tree are in surprisingly good condition. Backing slowly away from the site, Jon nods to himself before turning around and fetching his notebook.

* * *

The sweltering sun soon dries the world while Jon sweats through his tunic. He pulls it off his body, wipes his forehead with a still-dry corner, and hangs up the damp thing on a branch to dry. Then he picks up his tools and keeps stripping the bark off a trunk.

“You should probably put on another tunic,” Sam says. “You’ll burn.”

Jon looks up. Sam is perched on a fallen tree, his feet thumping happily against the bole as he watches Jon and his four men work. Little Sam sits by his side with a book in his lap, while Eddison does his best to remind Fox and Fang of the stick-fetching lessons he and his oldest brother taught them on their previous visit.

“You could always get one for me,” Jon says, returning his attention to his work. “If you’re so worried about the state of my skin.”

“You heard him, Eddy. Go tell a maid Lord Jon needs a fresh tunic.”

With a whiny complaint, Eddison drops the stick and stomps away. Unperturbed, Sam takes a swig from his waterskin. Jon works on to the rhythm of Sam’s swinging feet.

“When are you getting married?”

Jon stands up straight. “What?”

“You and Sansa.” Another swig. “When are you getting married?”

Jon sweeps his eyes over the worksite, where his men thankfully don't seem to be listening in, before fixing his gaze on Sam. “What are you doing?”

Sam smiles innocently. “Making conversation.”

“Can you make conversation somewhere else?”

“It’s just,” Sam says, voice lowered, “while we were all trapped during the storm, the way you two always seemed to find some excuse to sneak off, it’s rather obvious what you’re doing and Iselinde will have a brother or sister soon, and I know I’m one to talk because Gilly and I had been together for years and had at least two children--or was it three? Was Dickon born yet? I can’t remember. When did we…” Brow furrowed, Sam counts on his fingers before dismissing that conundrum with a shake of his head. “Anyway, technically, we were already married because I had stolen her and--”

“I thought you couldn’t steal a person. Seem to remember you saying something about Gilly not being a goat?”

“Well, yes, but according to Gilly’s culture, I stole her which would make me her husband and you’re trying to distract me.” Sam juts his finger at him. “Are you too nervous to propose? Is that it? I can help! I’m a rather romantic man. Did you know that for my wedding with Gilly, I wrote her a song?”

“I did know that.” Jon nods at the waterskin. “Are you going to share that or what?”

“Oh! Yes.” Sam tosses him the waterskin. “Would you like to write her a song? Sansa, that is. Not Gilly. If you attempt to woo my Gilly, I’m afraid I’ll have to challenge you to a duel. And don't think I'll go easy on you just because we're brothers.”

Laughing, Jon shakes his head. “I don’t want to write a song--or woo Gilly, for that matter.”

Tipping his head back, Jon downs half the contents of the waterskin. The rest he pours over his head before tossing the empty waterskin back to Sam.

Frowning, Sam shakes it as though to really make sure it is empty, and gives Jon a sullen look. “You could’ve saved me a little. It’s really hot out.”

Jon gives him a blank look; Sam grins, cheeks pink.

“Sam, I need to finish Sansa’s surprise. So either make yourself useful by picking up a hammer or keep an eye on her for me and make sure she doesn’t wander in here. All right? I don’t want her to see it before it’s done.”

Little Sam, who’s been entirely focused on his reading, looks up then with a very serious expression. “I help, my lord.” He tugs on Sam’s sleeve and hops down on the ground with the book tucked under his other arm. “Come, Father. We must let Lord Jon work. It’s a surprise for the Queen.”

“Remember what I said,” Sam says, looking over his shoulder as he walks away. “If you need help with your proposal, I’m your man.”

But Jon doesn’t need help with a proposal. As unromantic as his proposal was, it was one--and Sansa rejected it. If she changes her mind, she'll have to come to him. He doesn’t really need help with keeping her out of the godswood either. Since she saw the destruction, she’s avoided it like greyscale. 

She hasn’t avoided Jon, though, even though he almost expected her to keep her distance. She’s quiet and drawn and rejects any attempt at love making, granted, but she seeks out hugs and little touches and falls asleep with her hand in his. She still looks at him with so much love in her eyes it leaves him giddy.

She’s mourning, that’s all, and he lets her.

* * *

* * *

The gates to the godswood stand open from morning to evening, letting in workers and letting out the thuds and bangs of the wall being repaired. Sansa has yet to oversee it. As she’s seen Jon head into the godswood once or twice to check the progress, she’d deemed that enough and focused on her own work. But it’s not enough, is it? She’s the Queen. It’s her wall. They're her men. She should watch their progress and offer some words of encouragement and approval. 

Now she stands in the courtyard, staring at the open gates and the green of the godswood beyond them. Sam’s boys are playing outside with the litter of pups one of the dogs whelped two months earlier. Sansa smiles absentmindedly to them before returning her attention to the gates. Little Sam leaves the pile of puppies and skips off. He loves animals, that boy. Perhaps she should let him take one of the puppies now that they’re old enough--and she’s stalling.

It’s just some broken trees. She’s seen worse.

Much worse.

Sansa nods to herself, determined, and takes a step forward.

“Your Grace!” Sam comes running from the guesthouse. “A wo--” He leans forward, catching his breath. “A word, please, Your Grace. Inside? It’s rather hot out, wouldn’t you say?” He grins widely and dabs at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Suppose I shouldn’t complain after that storm… It got cold there for a moment, didn’t it?”

“How about my office?”

Sam beams. “Perfect.”

She sends a girl to the kitchen for frozen lemonade. Sansa sips hers with a satisfied sigh while Sam empties a whole glass before refilling it. It _is_ hot out. Men work in only their breeches, women wear nothing beneath their thin dresses, and Meera and Gilly often fill a wagon with children and drive to the mere to play in the cool water and teach the younglings how to swim. Sometimes Sansa joins them, but she’s been poor company since the storm. Paperwork doesn’t mind her mood, though, and today she stayed home.

“We’re going back to Tormund in a few days,” Sam says. “Milla’s having the baby soon and she’s all alone, poor thing. Has no mother or sisters to come help her. It’ll be nice for her, having Gilly there. And then there are Gilly’s sisters, of course…”

“Gilly told me you’re considering staying in the North. Have you decided?”

“I believe we have. Talked it through last night. They don’t want to move south. Gilly doesn’t want to leave them now that she’s finally found them. There’s only one option left, isn’t there? But we wanted to speak to you first, of course. About a keep."

"Do you have one in mind?"

"First I thought Hoarfrost Hill would be wonderful, since it’s next to Stonedoor, but then I thought: Deep Lake. Eh?” Sam smiles widely and looks at Sansa as if she should understand without explanation why it’s so perfect. “The lake. It’s green!”

“And that’s a… good thing?”

“I would say so, yes. Did you know,” he says, grabbing the edge of her desk and leaning forward, “green lakes often have more fish than blue lakes or brown lakes? At least in colder climates. It would be very interesting to study. I bet there are species of fish there no one’s ever heard of. A Maester Laenus once stayed at Joardiswater--or Willowsmere, as some call it--for four years just to study its wildlife. And he learned so much--but can you imagine his findings had he stayed even longer? Perhaps even a lifetime. There could be undiscovered birds and insects and plants and algae--in the green lake, that is, not Joardiswater. Although, that’s probably--”

Sansa stops his rambling by holding up her hand. “So you would like Deep Lake for yourself and your family?”

“Yes--but that’s not the only reason. While Gilly and I were talking, we got to thinking.” Sam pauses dramatically, eyes sparkling. “Why doesn’t the North have its own Citadel? Or, rather, its own institute for learning and discovering and experimenting and all those things. Deep Lake would be perfect for it, really.”

“And you perfect as its Arch Maester, I assume.”

He puffs up his chest like a proud rooster. “I _was_ Grand Maester, once. A rather short once, granted, but it still counts.”

Sansa can’t help but smile at that. Sipping her lemonade, she thinks over his words for a moment. Most of the northern Houses are led by women now, and many of their heirs are girls. Although some are more traditional, few would be happy to help in funding an institution prohibited for women now that they’ve finally earned some influence in society.

“And whom would this institution accept as its students? Only men?”

“Gilly would kick me out of bed if I said no women allowed.”

“As she should,” Sansa says and they share a smile. “There are many who would disapprove, though. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I’m used to being disapproved of.”

He says it with a casual shrug, but his voice wavers from old painful memories and she remembers the day he shared with her how he came to take the black. How his father looked at him and saw not a beloved son but something worthless.

Reaching over the desk, Sansa takes his hand and gives him a kind smile. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Sam. Shall we invite Gilly and Wolkan to discuss it further?”

That brings a beaming smile back to Sam’s face--and Sansa finds herself beaming too. 

Ever since she saw the heart-tree split in two, its halves separated, a cruel hand has closed around her heart at even the smallest reminder. Smiling has been difficult, then. But Sam’s enthusiasm is infectious and she welcomes both that and the distraction a new project brings. 

Jon becoming Jon the Builder always made sense to her, for she is a builder too, in her own way. As queen, she's built and rebuilt--and each time she does what she can to knit the North together, the tears within her knit together too.

She’ll return to the godswood once they’re done with the repairs and the walls are healed, she decides. By then perhaps, thanks to this new project, her own heart will have healed a little too.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Jon never meant to eavesdrop. They’ve been making good time on the worksite. It’s barely been a week and yet, if they work hard tomorrow, they’ll be done the day after that. It has eaten up his days, though, this surprise. While Shadow helped the first few days by pulling logs and Oskar has taken good care of her in the days following, Jon still feels as if he’s neglected her. Once the sun stands lower in the sky and the summer heat has gone from nearly overbearing to balmy, he takes her out to the fields to nurture their bond.

After the past few weeks, the quiet out here is even more a boon than usual. While most of their guests left as soon as the roads had dried enough, Sam and his family, and Meera and Wylis are still here. With the constant noise of men working (and men talking about all the fine womenfolk in their thin dresses and how summers are never long enough anymore), and children playing, and puppies yipping, Jon longs for a calmer castle.

The copse where he and Sansa found jonquils rises against the blue sky. Remembering the stream, Jon slides off Shadow and leads her toward it to water both him and her. But they’ve not even entered the copse before a voice reaches him and slows his step.

“...used to think the gods meant for us to be together and that life got in the way. Now, though…”

Sansa. Jon stops. He can’t see her from where he’s standing, but the breeze carries her voice rather well.

“Do you believe in the gods?” Sansa asks. “Do you believe they give us signs?”

“Yes.” Meera’s voice. “I know they do.”

“I don’t know what I believe. But I know life has separated me and Jon over and over. Life has kept us apart--sometimes for years. And every time we’ve been close to… _something_ , something has happened. I was about to read his scroll so many times, but something always stopped me. But what if I had? It would’ve changed _everything_. Instead I burned it.”

“You shouldn’t have read it. You promised you wouldn’t and you kept your promise. That’s a good thing.”

“But what about our tree? How could Winterfell remain practically untouched in that storm only for the linden grove to be ruined? Only for our tree to be ruined. It represented us and it was split in two, Meera. How can that not be a sign? How can that not be a _warning_. What if our future wasn't stolen from us because our parents made the wrong choices. What if the gods saw a future that should never be and they’ve done their best to keep us apart and we’re now stubbornly fighting it because we foolishly believe we actually belong together when it might lead to something terrible!"

“So, what, you think you’ll birth the next Mad King or Mad Queen?”

“I don’t know. What if we birth something even worse?”

“What if Gendry does. He’s a Targaryen too, isn’t he? He has the blood--and the way that man sows his oats... Not that it matters. Honestly, we all have ancestors who’ve done horrible things. You don’t have to be a Targaryen to be evil."

“I know. I know I’m being ridiculous. But everything that happens is something you’ve seen before and you have to be _prepared_. If you’ve envisioned every possible scenario, then you can never be surprised and--”

She stops so abruptly, Jon thinks he’s been found out. Red-hot shame burns through him. But then Meera keeps talking, carefully expressing worry over Sansa, and Jon does what he should’ve done the moment he realized he was overhearing a private conversation: he mounts Shadow and rides somewhere else.

  
  


That evening, when they go to bed, Sansa is still loving and cuddly. She still kisses him sweetly on the lips before closing her eyes and falling asleep. He thinks, then, about his dark voice--the one who whispered to him his fears not his actual beliefs--and the conversations Sansa could've overheard had Sam stayed at Winterfell at the time. Someone Jon trusted the way Sansa trusts Meera, but who still is removed enough from the situation to keep a cool head. Calmed, and with Sansa's hand soft and warm in his, Jon falls asleep too. 

The next day, after breakfast, their guests finally leave. After Jon, Sansa, and Iselinde have waved them off, Sansa leaves for a meeting and he sneaks off to the godswood. His men are already working; Jon picks up a hammer and dives in. Kari stops by around noon and, while Jon wolves down ham and bread and ice cold water, she inspects the progress with an appreciative hum. She even has a few suggestions and, when he says they’ll be more or less done tonight, tells him she’ll help him tomorrow morning with the finishing touches.

He works late that day. Once he finally sinks into a tub to wash off sweat and sawdust, his aching limbs feel as if they’re five stones heavier each, and his blistered palms sting in the soapy water. Clean and robed, he drags himself to their bedchamber. Iselinde already sleeps while Sansa reads paperwork in bed. When he enters, she lowers the papers and looks at him, concerned.

“You look terrible.”

“Might be because I feel terrible.”

“You’re working too hard.” 

“Yeah, well,” he says and moves to disrobe, but pain shoots through his shoulders and he stops mid-motion with a groan.

She shakes her head and lays the papers aside. “You need a back rub. Go to your old chamber and lie down in bed. I’ll be right there.”

He’s half asleep when she comes through the door and puts a bottle of oil on the nightstand. It gleams golden in the candlelight. When she pours a healthy amount into her palm, the scent of peppermint spreads in the room.

“Wolkan said this will help in alleviating the pain,” she says and rubs and her hands together before putting them on Jon’s back and then he thinks he might be a good man after all, for surely he has died and floated into the unadulterated bliss of the seven heavens.

His eyes roll back in his head and he moans louder than a well-paid girl. With every stroke of Sansa's hands, with every kneading of his flesh, she brings him closer and closer to feeling more liquid than solid and it might be the best thing he’s ever experienced. His skin tingles from the peppermint, feels both warm and cold at once. It even hurts a little, but it’s a good kind of hurt he never wants to end.

Once she tells him to roll over on his back, his limbs are sore and heavy in a whole new way and he nearly has to ask her to help. But he manages on his own and then her fingers stroke his collarbone, massages the area where shoulder meets chest, massages his hips too and his thighs and his body responds without his permission. She never even touches him and yet he grows and grows until his cock rests on his stomach.

“Sorry,” he begins to say, but it comes out in a strangled moan when Sansa grips his hips, bends over the bed, and takes him into her mouth, sucking him off hard and hot and quick until he spills in her mouth and she swallows it down with appreciative hums.

Once he’s soft again, she kisses the head of his cock and, careful not to touch it with her peppermint oily hands, keeps massaging his groin. Then she moves to his thighs and calves and feet until she’s done and he's wholly spent in every possible way.

“Feel better?”

Jon sputters out something incoherent, smiling groggily.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, smiling too, and helps him into a fresh nightshirt.

“Not my turn, then?” he says, always hungry for her taste no matter how tired.

“I’m not in the mood.” After washing her hands, she joins him in bed. “My mind is too loud today.”

“Your mind has been loud every day lately.”

“I know.” She pillows her head on his shoulder. “It’s just a tree. Considering everyone I’ve lost by now, you’d think I could handle a tree and yet.”

“It wasn’t any old tree, though. It was _our_ tree.”

“I know. It represented us and now...” She quiet for a moment, drawing lazy circles on his chest. “We should build a door between these chambers. Wouldn’t that be practical? I don’t like having to sneak through the hallway every time we want to be intimate.”

“Aye. It would be.” Jon brushes his fingers along her arm, tasting the words before he lets them taste air. “I overheard you and Meera. Yesterday. In the jonquil copse.” Sansa draws in a breath, tensing in his arms; he keeps brushing her skin soothingly. “I didn’t mean to. I was out with Shadow and I overheard you.”

“How much did you hear?”

“I don’t know. Just a bit. I left while you were still talking. You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. I just don’t want to go around pretending I didn’t overhear when I did.”

“It has nothing to do with how I feel about you or about us. It doesn’t change it either. I love you, Jon. I still want to be with you.”

“I know--and I know a thing or two about having dark thoughts. It’s your fear speaking. Not your sense.”

“Mm. The bad what ifs.” She sighs deeply. “Suppose I just can’t help myself even though I know better. But it’ll pass, the worry. It always does. I just needed to get those thoughts out of me and I didn’t want my worry to infect you.”

“A bit too late for that. I carry my own, remember?"

She moves over on her stomach and, with her hands clasped over his heart and her chin leaning on her hands, looks up at him. “You’ve had similar thoughts?”

“I’ll always worry. _Always._ You know that. And I think you will too. We just have to learn to live with that worry.”

“I think you’re right,” she says with a weak smile. “And what parents don’t worry? It’s part of it, no matter who you are.”

He ghosts his fingers over her cheekbone and cups the back of her head. “Would a surprise cheer you up?”

“A surprise? Are you planning something?”

“Perhaps.” He strokes her hair. “Perhaps I’ve been working on something that will be ready for you tomorrow.”

“What is it?”

"A _surprise_."

"Just a hint?"

He tuts. “You promised you wouldn’t snoop if I told you I was working on a surprise.”

She bites down on her lip, smiling brightly now. “I promise I won’t snoop.”

“Feel better?”

"Mm. You always know how to make me feel better."

“Does that mean your head isn't as loud anymore?"

She narrows her eyes at him, still smiling. “What are you after?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Was just thinking Her Grace might enjoy a moment on her throne. You see, I always know how to make her feel better and I think it's a great idea."

Sansa’s laugh is rich and husky. “If you insist,” she murmurs against his mouth and then he helps her move up up up so he can sup on her after all.

  
  


* * *

He waits until noon, when all workers have fled the hot midday sun for food and drink in the cool Great Hall, before leading Sansa to the godswood gates. There he ties a blindfold over her eyes and guides her down a cleared path taking them deeper into the wood. Once they’re finally where their linden tree once stood, he removes the blindfold.

Sansa sucks in a shaky breath and fumbles for his hand. Holds it tightly as she takes in her surprise with wide eyes and parted lips.

Before them, built from their heart-tree and the lindens surrounding it, stands a large pavilion with pony walls connected by eight pillars holding up the slated hip roof. Along the pony walls, inside the pavilion, run benches. And beneath them, outside on the ground, Kari has helped Jon lay flower beds in which the jonquils and the plants from the valley grow. They’ve dug up honeysuckle and ivy too, and re-planted it to climb cozily up trellises he’s attached to two of the sides.

He even managed to salvage the carved face, which now adorns one of the pillars and serenely gazes down on them.

Breathless, Sansa lifts her skirts and walks up the two steps and onto the floor of the pavilion. With trembling fingers, she lays her hand over the face and closes her eyes. Tears fall from her lashes. Jon slides his arms around her waist and pulls her close.

“We can’t prevent all disasters,” he murmurs into her hair. “No matter how much we want to. No one can. Not even Bran. All any of us can do is make the best of what we’re given--and we will. Because we do belong together.” He turns her around in his arms so he can look at her. “I know we do. And not because of the gods or fate or any of that horseshit. I don’t believe in any of it. I believe we make our own choices--and I choose you, Sansa. I choose us.”

Her bottom lip trembles. And then she’s crying in earnest. Crying and kissing him and fumbling at the laces of his breeches and soon they’re making love on the floor beneath the scent of honeysuckle and linden wood, surrounded by the heart-tree at which they laid their vows.

Afterwards, when she lies half-sprawled atop him and showers his face with little kisses while telling him how perfect the pavilion is and how they’ll sit in here on hot summer days and read while their children play in the godswood, and how they can put a table, right where they’re lying, and have tea and lemon cakes when they have guests, and how their children will love playing in here where they can jump from bench to bench and dance on the floor and climb up the trellis like Bran would’ve done to howl from the roof like a wolf, Sansa pulls away suddenly in the middle of a sentence.

With one hand tangled in his hair and the other resting over his heart, she looks deeply into his eyes.

“Yes,” she says.

“Yes?”

“ _Yes_.”

Confused, he tucks a wayward lock behind her ear. “What?”

“It was a proposal, wasn’t it? That day you finally told me.”

Jon swallows, lifts his head. “But the North. They might not accept me.”

“We’ll give them time,” she says, nodding. “Once your farm is established and they know you’re Jon the Horseman now, that you’re no threat to anyone, and they’ve grown used to you again, we’ll marry. If you’re willing to wait that long.”

“Aye,” he says, smiling. “I can wait.”

“Besides, I want a spring wedding. I’ve gotten married in summer and in winter. This time, I want spring.” She gives him another kiss. “Good things happen in spring.”

Good things happen in summer too. It whirls by in a haze of family time and building a farm and swimming and fishing and riding. And fucking--so much fucking. In the pavilion, in the hot springs, in the broken tower, on the divan, in his bed, in their bed, in the mere, in the library, in the dining chamber, in at least two linen closets, and even in the kitchens, once or twice, when they’ve sneaked down for a midnight snack while the rest of the castle slept.

Then autumn comes and, once harvest is done, they bundle up against the chilly winds and travel to the Vale. Robin Arryn is married to Lysara Karstark and the Vale has become part of the North and those things are to be celebrated with a splendid feast. It’s the first time Jon has left the North in years--and the first time he’s left the safety of Winterfell after the disaster at White Harbor. But Robin and Sansa and Drustan all act as if Jon belongs and everyone else takes their cue from the three most powerful people in the room. Yohn Royce even takes it upon himself to proudly introduce Jon to the lord and ladies of the Vale as the general who gathered the greatest army the world had ever seen to fight the Night King, and the man without whom they all would’ve been wights, and the evening flows smoothly without any drama.

The next day, the sun has barely begun peering over the horizon when they hop into their carriage to travel to Gulltown where they board a ship sailing to Eastwatch. And from there, they drive along the Wall all the way to Stonedoor to visit Tormund and his family. The little princess is now three months old and called Tooth, for she was born with two teeth in her lower jaw. But they’re first and foremost there to celebrate the Prince Beyond the Wall turning two--and finally receiving his true name.

It’ll be close, but if they drive as quickly as they can, they’ll arrive in time for the feast. The gifts, however, should’ve already arrived. They sent them there days ago, just to be safe. As Tormund and Sansa have finally opened up mines in the true North, she set the first gold aside to be forged into a little crown for the prince. Jon, on the other hand, has made him a rocking horse.

Designing Sansa’s bracelet and building the pavilion, which required a more artistic touch than building cabins and stables, whetted Jon’s interest in creating more complicated things. And when Davos and his wife visited during the late summer, he asked for lessons in carving and whittling. The rocking horse took its time and he had to start over twice when he carved too much in the wrong place, but he’s rather proud of the result. Sansa even painted it once he was done, and sewed it a little saddle blanket and reins. In fact, it looks good enough they’ve decided to make one for Iselinde too, who’ll celebrate her first nameday in a couple of months.

“It’s going to be strange, calling him anything but Squirrel,” Sansa says, the Wall rising up in the distance. “I admit I found it odd, at first, but now… He _is_ Squirrel.”

“I know,” Jon says, laughing. “I don’t care what they’ll name him. I’ll keep calling him Squirrel.”

When they roll into the courtyard, the place is already teeming with wildlings, and highborn and lowborn northerners living in the area. Iselinde, whom the carriage lulled into sleep miles ago, sleeps on despite the clamor. They carry her to the guest quarters where they freshen up and change into new clothes, and leave her there with Kari and Lamb to continue sleeping so they can join the festivities. 

While Jon did enjoy himself just fine in the Vale, a wildling feast suits him better. Here no one cares if he eats like a crow or if he struggles with smalltalk and prefers to just drink his horn of ale in peace. The only awkwardness, really, is when he notices that both Ragna and Agnys attend the feast. But they have either lost interest in him or heard that he’s taken now, for neither pays him much attention. Sansa makes sure to kiss him in front of them both, though--just to be safe--and it makes him so ridiculously happy he grins like a fool for at least half an hour.

Once the main course has been eaten, Tormund grabs his horn and his son, rises to his feet, places his son on the high table, and clears his throat loudly. The din filling the room quiets and all eyes turn to him and Squirrel. The boy is already tall for his age and his golden crown sits on a mop of ginger hair even wilder than his father’s. 

“I know you’re all wondering,” Tormund says, “what name I’ve chosen for my son, the Prince Beyond the Wall--”

“We’re rather _on_ the Wall, though, aren’t we!” someone in the crowd calls. “You’ve become a crow, Tormund!”

Laughter erupts in the hall, but Tormund takes it in stride. “We’re all crows now,” he says and then they all caw in unison before breaking out laughing again until Tormund shushes them with a wave of his hand. “Now raise your tankards and drink in honor of your prince.” He hoists Squirrel high in the air. ”To Jon!”

An answering echo, a hundred men strong, fills the hall. Something wet splashes Jon’s shoulder. Ale, he thinks. Aye, ale. For everyone's raising their tankards with such gusto their drinks slosh over the rims as they cheer at Squirrel and at Tormund and at Gullis, gods rest her soul--and at Jon. Sansa’s hand squeezes his thigh. Dazzled, he turns to her. She’s smiling. He thinks he’s smiling too, but he's too dizzy to tell. Someone shouts for a speech and Jon finds himself yanked to his feet by, he doesn’t even know whom, and he stares out over the sea of people who are all waiting for his wise words with happy mouths and tankard-filled hands. 

“Uh,” Jon says and the sea stills. “Poor lad. At least he has very little to live up to!”

For a heartbeat, everything is quiet. But then the sea of people washes their laughter over him and he sinks back down on the bench and finds Sansa’s hand beneath the table.

“Are you all right?” she whispers in his ear.

“Yeah,” Jon says and now he knows he’s smiling. “I’m all right.”

“You were just joking right?” Her eyes move between his, worried. “You are _wonderful_. You make me so happy, every day, and if Squirrel grows up to be even half the--”

“All right, all right.” Jon moves away her wine cup. “Perhaps you’ve had enough.”

“Shut up,” she says, nudging him with her shoulder, and takes back her cup. “You know I’m not drunk.”

“I know,” he says, blinking softly, and leans in for a kiss.

But before their lips meet, a shadow falls over them, and Jon turns his head. There stands Tormund with Squirrel on his shoulders, grinning from ear to ear.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he says. "I think I deserve to see a little kiss."

Jon just shakes his head and smiles up at the wildling prince. “Happy nameday, Jon--or should I say Little Jon?”

“Bah!” Holding Squirrel’s legs, Tormund barks out a laughter. “He’s almost half your size already. Give it a few years and he’ll be a head taller. My boy’s Big Jon. _You_ can be Little Jon.”

“Well, you are the king. Suppose it’s up to you.”

Tormund nods, still grinning, but then the grin softens into a wistful, misty smile. “Remember the day we met? When you knelt for me. Called me ‘Your Grace.’ What a silly baby crow you were. I never would’ve guessed this. That we’d end up here, you and me. Best friends. Brothers, really. Me a king. And you a man with a good woman and a baby of your own--and probably another on the way soon, eh.” He waggles his brows at them. “Yeah, Sam told me you two fuck like bunnies. About time, I say. I was afraid you’d never get some sense into those thick heads of yours. But here you are. Together.” Tormund sniffles. “And it’s all thanks to me. I made it happen. _I_ did.” He leans in close, blue eyes locked with Jon’s. “You're welcome."

Then he kisses the top of Jon’s head and swans off with Prince Jon on his shoulders, both son and father gleaming with joy in the light of their people’s attention.

“He wants us to name our next child Tormund, doesn’t he?” Sansa says.

“I think he does,” Jon says, laughing. “Let’s hope it’s another girl.” 

* * *

* * *

Sleet hammers down over the rooftops. Tilia pulls her cloak tighter around her body, trapping the hot container within the cocoon to warm herself, and scurries down the alleyways. Few are out today and those who are keep to themselves. For a week, they’ve celebrated spring arriving to Braavos. As gardens are rare, flowers were shipped from the Summer Isles and woven into necklaces and wreaths worn by the rich. But four days into their celebration, winter drew its dying breath and let the cold seep back into the city on the exhale. Now those wreaths hang frost-bitten from windows and eaves and awnings or lie trampled in empty, quiet streets. It’s so quiet Tilia imagines she can still hear the annoying bragging man in the alehouse she just left, even as she finally reaches the building where she and Farran pay extra for a small and cold (but dry) room just so they don’t have to share it with someone else.

For a moon they’ve stayed here (as they have, many times before over the years). It’s become a sort of home, she supposes. They know everyone in the neighborhood. They know the whores in the brothels and the cooks in the inns and the maids in the alehouses and the children on the streets who pick pockets and sell secrets. They usually don’t stay for a moon, though, but Farran got sick when the cold returned. 

She’s still in bed when Tilia sneaks into their room. The moonlight struggles through the grimy window, coloring Farran’s skin a sickly gray. While Tilia is still brown from their travels in Volantis, Farran pales quickly and the cold makes her paler still.

Gingerly, Tilia puts the container on the nightstand, removes the lid, and wafts the onion-and-mushroom scented steam over the bed. Farran stirs instantly and sits up with some effort, rubbing her eyes.

“Took you long enough,” she says, putting the container to her lips to drink of the stew.

Tilia slips out of her cloak and crawls into bed. “Shush.” She kisses Farran’s shoulder. “There was a ruckus and Loren wasn’t working. Couldn’t slink into the kitchens like usual.” She touches Farran’s forehead with her wrist. “Think your fever is down, finally.”

“Yeah. I’ve been sweating like mad.” Farran wipes her mouth with her free arm. “I always get sick when we return to Braavos. It’s so annoying.”

“It’s cos you didn’t grow up in a city. A wharf rat like myself has had all the sniffles and coughs already.”

“I wish I grew up in a city,” Farran mutters into her stew.

“No, you don’t,” Tilia says, laughing. “Not unless you’re a merchant’s daughter, you don’t.”

Though, Farran might be, for all Tilia knows. Three years have passed since the night they found one another in a brothel where Farran had gotten work as a scullery maid. A brothel to which Tilia had been sold the night before. After having been washed and combed and inspected and dressed in finery, she was to spend that evening with her first customer: some rich fat-bellied man who liked his girls pure. Despite being an old woman of nineteen at the time, Tilia was small for her age and had protected her innocence with nails and teeth and daggers and wharf rat smarts until she was betrayed by someone who needed gold more than he needed friends. But that fat-bellied man never ended up stealing her innocence, for she and Farran escaped that same night after Farran burst into the room and cut that big belly open with her slender sword after he had struck Tilia on the mouth so hard she tumbled into the wall.

Yes, three years have passed--and Farran still hasn’t told Tilia who she is or where she’s from. But even though she eats like a street child and moves seamlessly through dark alleys and brothels and harbors and throngs of people scrounging to make ends meet, she can also read and write and count--complicated numbers too--and even if her speech varies depending on the company, she can speak proper and knows several languages and what titles to use when around fine folk.

Yeah, she might be a merchant’s daughter, Farran. She might be finer than that, even. All Tilia knows of her childhood is that Farran lost her mother and father so young she no longer remembers their faces. That she had a beloved dog, once, who ran away. That her nameless brother gave her the sword she calls Needle and why she only has one hand.

“Why was there a ruckus?” Farran asks once they’ve finished the rest of the stew together.

“There was this man. He’d got the whole room under his spell. Told them all about this fancy feast where he claimed he’d danced with the Queen in the North for a whole evening. Said she asked him to become her lover. That she wanted another child and she liked the look of him, but I think he was lying cos--”

“Another child?” Farran watches her wide-eyed. “But that means the Queen in the North already has one. A child.”

“Yeah. He said it was the little princess’ first nameday celebration. That was the feast.”

“Sansa has a child?” Farran sits up straight. “Sansa has a _daughter_?”

Tilia’s brow knits. “You know the Queen in the North?”

“Tia.” Farran takes her hand, strokes her thumb over her knuckles. “Three years, we’ve been together and not once have you asked for my real name. Even though we both know you know Farran ain’t it.”

“I wanted you to tell me when you were ready.”

“I know.” Another caress over her knuckles. “My name is Arya--Arya of House Stark--and I think it’s time we return to Westeros. It’s time we go ho--” Her voice breaks, her hand tightening around Tilia’s hand. “It’s time we go to Winterfell.”


	32. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

Below the hilltop on which Arya sits, vast fields separate her from Winterfell. Behind her stands the Wolfswood; to her left lies Joardiswater, dark and glimmering of moonlight, as if a piece of the sky has descended to rest in the grass for a while. There’s a new building down there. From here she can’t see what kind, sees mostly the lights, all of them static but one which moves around as if a lantern carried by a man doing his final round before bed.

She too should sleep, but her eyes wander back to the field, to the keep.

The Winterfell of her childhood was golden. It was sunlight and laughter and climbing godswood trees. It was swimming in the pond and cuddling the puppies in the kennels and sneaking into Sansa’s room at night when Old Nan’s stories lingered in Arya’s mind and she saw monsters in the shadows. It was Jon always knowing how to make her smile.

The Winterfell she left behind, though...

About two years ago, now, she dreamed of home and woke in the middle of the night with a longing in her heart so strong it drove her to a ship. It departed before dawn. She worked for her bunk. Avoided the crew. Dreamed of home anew whenever she lay down at night and those dreams were so strong she forgot how she can’t stand seafaring anymore and how the Winterfell she once loved no longer existed. Not until she stood in the throng of Gulltown, among merchants and fishmongers and sailors, and someone grabbed her arm and called out, “ _The Hero of Winterfell! The Night King Slayer!_ ” for all to hear did Arya fully comprehend what she was doing. He tried dragging her into an alehouse to show her off to his friends; she evaded his grasp and fled onto the next boat back to Braavos.

While she and Tilia did travel together back then, they weren’t together yet (or at least they didn’t know it). That night, though, when Farran returned to the room they’ve come to share so often over the years, they found each other for the first time. Truly found each other. It was different. As if she’d walked through mist her whole life, searching for something she could not see, and now, finally, the mist cleared and showed her a home that had waited patiently in front of her all along. That night she fell asleep easily. That night she fell asleep smiling.

Now sleep won’t come, though. While Tilia is already wrapped in sleeping skins, Arya left the cocoon to stare at the past she's done her best to leave behind.

“Do you wanna talk?”

Arya turns around. The night is balmy enough they need no campfire to warm them. The one they built to roast a rabbit has burned down low. Tilia’s skin is rosy in the emberlight; her black hair gleams red. After she learned Arya’s true name, something changed between them. Home became… Not cold but muted, perhaps. Veiled by mist again as if she feared that Farran was a costume worn by a spoiled little brat who wanted to taste poverty and danger and sordidness before she returned to silk dresses and throne rooms and handsome lords. As if she feared Arya would dump her by the roadside and ride on to her golden Winterfell, alone and free. As if the promises they made each other at a heart-tree which grew, impossibly, in the ruins of King’s Landing meant nothing after all and all the things Arya had told her of her past were lies.

Not that Arya can blame her. Farran made those promises (even if Arya meant them). And although she’s told Tia many things about her life, she’s protected the details that could name her. Before they left Braavos some weeks earlier, Tilia knew Arya had worked as a cupbearer but not where or for whom. She knew she was a Faceless Man for a while but didn’t know about the list that drove Arya there. She knew Arya had lost many of the people she’s loved the most--and in gruesome ways too--but not exactly how gruesome.

Arya has carried all that pain like stones in her heart. Protected them there even as they’ve weighed her down and worn her down and bruised her within for that pain was a sort of tether. She didn’t know how to exist in the world without it. She didn’t know whom she’d be.

She knows, though, that whomever she becomes, she’ll want Tia by her side. So, at last, Arya started talking. Every night as they lay down beneath their sleeping skins and the open sky, Arya plucked one of the stones from her heart and showed it to Tilia. Winterfell, Mycah, Nymeria. Her father’s execution. Yoren and Arry and Gendry and Hot Pie. Harrenhal and Jaqen. The Hound and the Red Wedding. The House of Black and White. No one.

One by one, she gave them to Tilia to hold for a moment. One by one, she let them fall.

“I barely even remember what it’s like to be a lord’s daughter,” Arya whispered one night, somewhere north of Moat Cailin. “I don’t remember my father’s voice. I don’t remember my mother’s smile. The girl who was their daughter died a long time ago. I grew up on the road. I grew up dirty and poor and hungry. I grew up knowing my name could get me killed and I needed to hide who I was, always. Jaqen even wanted me to forget. To be No One. I know it’s not the same as being born into it. I know that. I’m no wharf rat. I had turned twelve before I learned what starving feels like. But I’m no princess either and I never will be. It’s not me.”

It became better between them after that--and Arya’s felt a bit better too, a bit lighter each time they’ve left behind another campsite, another stone. But there are stones left, still, and when she lies down in Tia’s arms, she tells her about returning to a Winterfell that wasn’t golden anymore but bleak and cold and blue--and how it only got worse once Jon got home instead of better.

“When he looked at me, he didn’t see _me_. He saw Arya Underfoot. His little sister. A child. But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I’d done horrible things. Things that would shock him if he knew. Things that would make him look at me differently--and _he_ was different too. He wasn’t _my_ Jon anymore. He was…”

She’s never been able to put into words how Jon seemed to her back then. Like Bran, he looked familiar without but remained a mystery within. He’d died and gotten resurrected--she knew that much--but she was too happy to have him back to examine that. She loved him too much to acknowledge thoughts that have haunted her in the years that followed: perhaps not all of him returned. Perhaps he, like Beric, came back a little bit... _less_. 

Even now, that’s a stone she’s not willing to part from and she keeps it nestled in her heart. “Sansa was different too,” she says instead. “She was harder. Like me.”

Sansa was hard and cool and tightly bound, her lady’s armor no longer made of silk and lace but of leather and steel. When she gave her close-lipped smiles it wasn’t to look the demure blushing maid but to hide her sharpened teeth. None of that bothered Arya. _That_ , she understood. What bothered her was how Sansa kept that armor up around Arya too, how she never shed it over time so they could grow closer. She might’ve talked about the pack, Sansa, about working together, but it was only words and words are wind. In the end, the distance between them seemed as vast as the fields now separating them. 

Arya doesn’t know which Sansa she’ll meet tomorrow, but she must’ve changed further. No version of her Arya has known would ever have a bastard.

The faces Arya rarely wears anymore call to her. It would be so easy to slip one on and sneak into the castle and learn, arriving prepared tomorrow. It would be easier still to enter The Smoking Log and listen. News becomes less credible the longer it travels, she knows, but at Wintertown’s alehouse she should get news accurate enough. But the faces are poison to someone who’s not No One, and the lips brushing over her neck are warm and soft and full of life. So Arya finds those lips, finds the only home that makes sense to her anymore. Winterfell is merely a place to visit.

(She still doesn’t fall asleep until dawn peers over the horizon.)

* * *

* * *

  
  


“I thought I’d bring Iselinde with me today.” Jon rests his chin on Sansa’s hip bone. “And maybe you could join us at noon? Spend the rest of the day with us.”

“Do you miss me that much?”

“I work, Sansa,” he says in a very serious voice. “I don’t have time to think about my woman during the day. I just thought…” He kisses the dip between her hip and the place to which he’s already given generous attention this morning. “Perhaps Kari can mind Iselinde for a bit so we can take the Minnow out. Enjoy ourselves now that your _appetite_ finally has returned.”

“Oh, _that_ you missed. It’s the only thing you like about me, just admit it.”

“Aye, I admit it. The rest of you I could do without. Well,” he says, fingers brushing over the small swell of her stomach, “ _almost_.”

“Perhaps I should find myself a new lover. One who loves _all_ of me.”

“Don’t you dare.” He growls and nips at her thigh with his teeth. “You’re mine.”

“Not yet. Two weeks left, Jon. That’s plenty of time to call things off. So, if I were you, I would choose my words with care.”

“All right.” He grins. “I miss you, Sansa. All day long. I can barely _stand_ it. Sometimes I have such a strong urge to run home and see your beautiful face, Oskar has to tie me to a pole.”

“Shut up,” she says and whacks him over the head with a pillow.

Laughing, Jon plucks it from her hand and throws it over his shoulder. It lands between his old bed and the divan that now stands by the hearth. He’s built it himself. A more northern looking piece with clean lines, a proper backrest, and Stark gray upholstery. He gifted it to her after she added a door to the wall separating their chamber from his old room. Once Iselinde sleeps, they often sneak in here to cuddle on the divan and talk about their day before making love. Other times, like today, they wake up early and sneak inside for some intimacy before the day starts. Lately they’ve done both. After several weeks of going without thanks to fatigue and a nausea so strong even the mere thought of his seed made Sansa retch, they’re making up for lost time. 

“I do, though,” Jon says, softly now. “Miss you. I want my family with me always. You and Iselinde and this little wolf cub.”

He brushes a kiss to her belly and looks up at her with a tender smile. His eyes shine with so much love for her and their unborn child, her own eyes well up, and she laughs at herself as she wipes them. (She’s so sensitive this time too.)

“Perhaps you could build me a little office at the farm. I could sit in there and work.”

“I could,” Jon says. “But if you worked at the farm, we wouldn’t get anything done.”

“You don't know that. Maybe we’d grow tired of one another.”

“Never,” he says in a voice that’s playfully, but his eyes are dark and fierce.

Even after all these months, that look still makes her stomach swoop. It still makes her want him all over again, and she invites him into her arms and loves him, slowly, almost lazily. When he curls up next to her afterwards, she runs her fingers through his hair just to feel the silkiness against her skin. Just to hear him hum contentedly into the crook of her neck.

Everyone tells her the hunger will mellow. It’s the nature of passion; it can’t burn forever. The stubborn part of her thinks that maybe it could, with the right fuel. That she and Jon are different. She was touch-starved, once, and so was he. Maybe that’s all the fuel they need. 

A sweet little voice comes through the wall, then, calling for _mama_ and _baba_. Lamb even scratches lightly on the door. Jon jumps out of bed, washes quickly, and slips on a knee-length tunic before heading into their chamber, leaving the door ajar.

“Good morning, sweet girl. Did you sleep well?”

Stretching out languidly in bed, Sansa listens with a smile to Jon asking Iselinde questions about her dreams and getting toddler coos and babbles in return.

Sansa dreamed of Arya. She often does now and the dreams are always the same. At first, she’s young Arya, the little girl who wore her feelings plainly for all to see and ran around with a stick in her hand as a makeshift sword. But then she grows taller, colder, quieter until she becomes a shadow lurking in the corners.

It’s the wedding, Sansa thinks. Everyone will be here except Arya, and her absence feels like a condemnation. 

They decided only a few months ago, though, and news travels slowly. She might not know. She’d come if she knew, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t miss that. And if she saw how happy they are, she’d give her blessing. Wouldn’t she?

With a sigh, Sansa leaves Jon’s old bed and begins to clean up. She’ll most likely never know either way, so she shakes those thoughts from her mind, puts on a robe, and joins her little family in their crowded bed for morning cuddles.

* * *

* * *

“You should get a room at The Smoking Log so you don’t have to sit out here all day,” Arya says, rummaging around in their skinny coin purse for a gold dragon. 

She’ll go alone. She needs to do it alone. If all goes well, she’ll get Tilia. They’ll stay for a few days and then… They should ride farther north, Arya supposes. Last she heard, Jon disappeared into lands beyond the Wall. For all she knows he hides there still. Perhaps Sansa knows… Well, if they by some whim of the gods have learned to get along over the years and be a family, that is. She probably knows nothing.

Finally, Arya’s fingers close around the right coin. “Tell them you’re with me and they’ll be good to you.”

“I’d rather be out here, though.” Tilia gives her a dimpled smile before returning her attention to the purple flower in her hand. A child of Braavos, of water and cobblestone streets and the rare garden behind well-guarded walls, she loves flowers the way most girls love jewels. “What’s this called, then?”

Arya shrugs. “Sansa would know.”

“Do you think she’ll…” Eyes downcast, Tia prods gently at the pointed petals. “Something-star, I think. It looks like a star, don’t it?”

“Yes,” Arya says, voice soft. “I think she will like you.”

“I’m a wharf rat. She’s a queen.”

“She’s not like most queens.”

Tilia keeps her eyes on the flower, turning it this way and that. “You should go. It’s almost noon.”

“Yeah,” Arya says, but her body doesn’t move.

No one knows they’re here. Arya has made sure of it, deboarding at Gulltown, following seldom traveled roads, staying away from people and inns... They could still head back to the port. Board a ship to Braavos. Keep living their life. Doing some good in this shit world they live in. Sansa would never even know--nor would Jon. Nothing felt right last time. Why would today be any different? Father was wrong. Arya has learned that much over the years. The lone wolf does survive, littermates mean very little in the end, and the pack is ever-changing.

“We can leave and all,” Tia says. “If that’s what you want. But I think you’d regret it. You have a little niece, Farran. She deserves to know you. Don’t you reckon?”

“Yeah.” Arya’s chest expands with a big breath; she exhales and rises to her feet, pulling Tia with her. They’re almost of a height. Tia is barely half an inch taller. “You’ll be here when I come back, right?”

Tilia’s lips turn into a thin line, but if any harsh words are hidden behind them, she swallows them. Her eyes speak instead, round and dark and wounded.

Arya rests her forehead against hers and closes her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers and scoops up her hand, squeezing it three times. “You and me.”

“You and me,” Tia whispers, squeezing three times too.

Then Arya cradles her wife’s cheek and kisses her on the lips before making her way down the hill to Winterfell. 

* * *

The scents of roasted meat, buttered vegetables, and herb bread waft through the courtyard. Arya’s stomach rumbles. She ignores it. Ten feet away stands Sansa, still unaware of her little sister cloaked by shadow and a hood that leaves her sweating in the late spring heat. (The North of her childhood was never this warm in spring.)

The Sansa she remembers--who was rigid and controlled and dressed in lines so sharp it seemed like a warning _(touch me and you’ll bleed)_ \--is an image so strong in Arya’s mind it has replaced the faded memories of a Sansa who was all things soft and pretty. Arya _knows_ Sansa was like that once more than she actually remembers it. She never thought Sansa would be like that again--and yet here she is, somehow both closer to her childhood self than ever and at the same time so far from it Arya no longer feels she knows her at all.

She’s unbound, this Sansa, softened by motherhood. Her smiles are open. Her hair flows freely. Her cornflower blue dress billows softly in the breeze when the Sansa who ruled the North in her brother’s stead always chose gray. (It even has colorful embroidery running along the hem.) She wears no corset. Her stomach pouts out the smallest bit. 

It’s an odd sight. 

Something within Arya tells her to run--but before she’s decided whether or not to listen, their eyes meet. Sansa’s widen. Her mouth drops open. And then she’s the one running, the skirts of her dress fluttering around her legs like waves splashing against a rocky shore.

Arya can’t remember when she learned to turn off part of herself, only that it was so long ago it’s become second nature. When others rage and panic and cry, she often manages to stay cool and calm. Hard like stone. Unfeeling. Not always, no, but often enough that even laughter and joy sometimes feel foreign to her. Beneath Tilia’s patient touch, however, Arya is learning to stop relying on it. She’s learning to feel again even when it’s scary. But Sansa has become a stranger and when she pulls Arya into a hug and cries into her hair, Arya’s arms hang by her sides, her eyes remain dry, and her heart refuses to feel anything at all.

Habitually, wordlessly, they walk to the heart-tree abreast. While Winterfell looked mostly the same, there’s something different about the godswood. When she looks west, Arya imagines that it’s not quite as dense. Still, it feels smaller. As if more creatures hide therein. She even catches a glimpse of reddish fur in the foliage. A fox, perhaps, or a squirrel.

They settle down beneath the heart-tree. The pale trunk is a familiar comfort against Arya’s back. Bran disappeared, she knows, but she suspects he’s alive. Why else would a weirwood tree grow in a city razed twice by dragonfire?

Sansa fishes a lace-trimmed handkerchief from a pocket and dabs at her still-leaking eyes. She says nothing, though. Fidgets with her handkerchief. Smooths out the wrinkles and folds it. A large bracelet with a gem-adorned tree glitters at her wrist whenever it catches the sunlight piercing through the leafy canopy.

“That’s pretty,” Arya says, nodding at the bracelet.

Sansa covers it with her hand, cheeks pink. “Thank you.”

“Did your lover give you that?”

The pink of Sansa’s cheeks deepens into red; she draws a breath as if to speak, but her mouth hangs open and soundless for a beat before she closes it. 

“I didn’t believe it when I first heard it,” Arya says. “You hear so much…”

“Like what?” Sansa asks, more to her handkerchief than to Arya. “What have you heard?”

“Not much. I’ve not…” Her missing hand tingles with a need to fidget; she closes her left hand around the stump. “I like keeping to myself. The little I’ve heard has usually been from some mummer’s farce and they exaggerate everything to make it entertaining. They even make things up. I don’t like watching them. Last I heard, you had a wildling lover.” She glances at Sansa to see her reaction; she’s still as stone. “Wasn’t a real wildling, though. It was Tyrion. Some other dwarf got stabbed at that brothel because you still saw Tyrion as your husband and you’d smuggled him beyond the Wall and now he went under a wildling name and visited Winterfell every year to give you a lion cub.”

Sansa emits something between a laugh and a gasp. “That is _not_ true.”

“I didn’t think it was. But what I heard about you and Drustan Martell… That was different. Still didn’t believe it, though. Not at the time, anyway. But then I heard you have a daughter--and you do, right? A little princess.”

“I do. I do have a daughter.”

“And another one on the way?”

Sansa forgets to be a lady and gapes at Arya before gathering herself, an arm wrapped around her belly. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re very perceptive.”

“I know the world thinks the most important thing a woman can do is finding a husband, but I’m not like that. I don’t care that you’ve taken a lover. I’ve had lovers too. All I care about is that he treats you right and I assume Drustan does. Since you’ve let him put two babes in your belly.”

Sansa turns into stone once more. Silent. Still. The wood around them cares little that the two sisters are hobbling their way through a conversation long overdue. Birds sing happily. Butterflies flutter and bees buzz. The sun shines almost too brightly. And among the green of a rosehip bush, Arya catches another glimpse of reddish fur. Foxes usually sleep during the day, though. Could be a cat, she supposes. There’s always a band of them protecting Winterfell and its stores from mice.

“Drustan and I were together for a while,” Sansa says, finally, “it’s true, but he didn’t give me this bracelet. Nor is he the father of my children.”

Arya’s eyebrows rise high on her forehead. “How many lovers have you had?”

“Just two,” Sansa says. “So where have you been all this time?”

The question comes out a bit too rushed, as if Sansa is eager to steer the conversation away from her lovelife. From something that matters. Arya can’t help the disappointment sinking in her stomach. Although she’ll never admit it, somewhere deep within she’ll always be the little girl who secretly looked up to her big sister and craved being chosen over those silly girls Sansa called friends and gushed to about stupid boys.

Arya tucks her stump closer to her body. “Here and there.”

“I see. And if I ask you what you’ve been doing, you’ll answer, ‘This and that?’”

Arya answers with a shrug.

“Have you been alone? Can you tell me that, at least?”

“I haven’t. I have a… friend I travel with.” 

“Are they with you?”

“Yeah. Where we made camp. I wanted to see you on my own first.”

“You must be close. If they came with you."

Arya gives another shrug.

“Do they…” Sansa’s eyes follow the length of Arya’s arm before skittering away. “This friend of yours, are you as secretive with him as you are with me?”

“Oh, _I’m_ the secretive one?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so…” Sansa sighs and as that breath leaves her, the stoniness gives way to sincerity. “I’m glad you have someone. I am. I have a friend too. Do you remember Meera? She was here for me when no one else was and it helped me.” Her lips quirk in a quick, sad smile. “I would’ve been lost without her.”

Arya peers at her. “No one else was here for you?”

“I had people around me--a queen is rarely alone--but for a long time, I was very lonely.”

“I was too. Before I met Tilia.”

“Oh, she’s a girl, your friend. I’m glad. Men can be…” Sansa exhales, shaking her head. “A _lot_. Will I get to meet her?”

Arya hesitates. Perhaps she should tell her, just tell her, get it over with. _She’s not a friend._ Easy enough to say. It would shock her too. That could be fun. (It could help them bond.) _Tell her,_ the little sister in her says, _and she might tell you something too._ But Arya’s mouth doesn’t listen.

“Do I get to meet your lover? Where is he, anyway?” Arya pretends to scan the godswood. “Do you keep him here?”

“I don’t _keep_ him.” Sansa clears her throat, sitting a bit straighter. “He’s with our daughter.”

 _Our_ daughter, huh.

She’s blushing again too.

“He’s not just some bedwarmer who gave you children, is he,” Arya says. “You’re in love with him.”

Sansa falls silent, expressionless. _Again._ Her colorful dress, her unbound hair, they seem almost a costume now--but Arya knows that’s not true. Queen Sansa Stark needn’t be the little dove who survived a southern court. She’s simply not comfortable being her unbound self in front of Arya when she should know Arya never cared for binds. 

_It’s good you didn’t tell her_ , the little sister says, petulant. _Don’t tell her shit._

When Sansa speaks again, she does so in a low, measured way. (She still doesn’t meet Arya’s eyes.)

“I am. In love with him. Deeply. And he loves me. Our path has been… unconventional and not always pleasant. It certainly hasn’t been easy. But, Arya, I need you to know that I have chosen him and he has chosen me and--” Sansa licks her lips and breathes as if she stepped from a hearth-warm room into a cold winter night. Her eyes gleam with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, a wet little laugh in her voice. “It’s the pregnancy. I’m so sensitive.” The handkerchief makes a reappearance. “I cry at everything. I was like this when I expected Iselinde too.”

“Iselinde… Never heard that before. Did he choose it?”

“We chose it together, in a way. It’s a river in the true North. It runs from the Iron Mountains to the--” Sansa lowers the handkerchief and looks directly at Arya. “Bran’s alive. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you right away.”

Then she tells Arya about a secret society in a hidden valley in the Iron Mountains, where Children and giants walk among men, and the oldest weirwood tree in the world grows in their godswood. There lives Bran with his Eyes and Wings and Claws and Feathers and whatnot, all people who regard him almost like a god chosen to guard the world. All his followers.

“Sounds like Bran has gathered himself a nice little cult.”

Sansa laughs. “That’s what Meera said and I couldn’t help but agree, but Jon lived with--” She blinks and rolls her lips into her mouth; Arya’s stomach flips uncomfortably. “Jon lived with them for a while. They helped him heal. After King’s Landing. He wasn’t…” She shakes her head. “He should tell you that himself.”

Arya picks at the laces that tie her sleeve closed beneath the stump. “Do you know where he is?”

“Yes.” Sansa folds the handkerchief and pockets it. “He’s here. He lives here.”

“Here?” Arya huffs out a laugh. “I’m sure he loves that. Being Queen Sansa’s subject. How often do you fight?”

Sansa ducks her head, smiling. “Occasionally we argue. But he’s lived here for almost a year and a half. We’ve learned to talk to one another.”

“That’s good, because you two were incredibly annoying to be around.”

“Is that why you weren’t? Around. When Jon returned from Dragonstone, I thought we’d be together, all of us, but you were always... lurking somewhere.”

“That was part of it,” Arya says with a discreet glance around the godswood, as if Jon lurks somewhere too. “Where is he?”

“Do you remember the mere, northwest from here? Joardiswater. He’s built himself a farm there. He breeds horses.”

“I’ve seen it,” Arya says and perhaps she’s seen him too without knowing. Perhaps he was the one with the lantern, doing one final round before bed.

“I was supposed to join them at the mere for lunch but…” Sansa gives a tight smile, blinks a touch too frequently. “We should go there. He’ll be very happy to see you.”

With a hand against the trunk, Sansa gets to her feet. Arya, however, remains seated.

“What’s he like?” she asks, looking up at her sister. “Is he still…”

_Less._

Sansa’s thumb finds the palm of her hand; she rubs as she thinks, eyes gliding to the side. 

“Arya,” she says and there’s something so serious in her voice that Arya rises too without thinking, stomach lurching now. Something’s wrong. Something’s happened to Jon. Something awful. “Jon and--” Sansa stops, eyes fixed on something behind Arya. “He’s here.”

Turning around slowly, Arya expects to see the weary version of her brother who always slouched as if the fate of the realm had made a permanent home on his shoulders. But the Jon coming toward them looks neither like the sullen boy from her childhood nor the broken man he became. Good food and hard work under the sun have left him broader and bigger and tanned. Despite a toddler now sitting on his shoulders, he walks as if he’s never felt a weight on them at all. His posture is as good as Sansa’s, as good as Arya’s, as good as a king’s. 

He doesn’t look less at all but whole, even wholesome. The valley really did heal him, then. Arya’s eyes sting. (It always was difficult to remain hard like stone around him.) She’s barely aware of Jon handing the girl to her mother, barely aware of the reddish wolf trailing behind them. She sees only the brother she once loved more than anything.

The apprehension she’s felt over meeting him again slides off her like water over glass. He’s Jon-- _her_ Jon--and she becomes Arya Underfoot after all and leaps into his arms, weeps into his shoulder when he hugs her. He feels different but smells the same, and for as long as he holds her, she feels little again and it’s _good_. She almost remembers Father’s voice and Mother’s smile. Winterfell almost feels golden. Maybe she and Tilia can stay for a while. They can live with Jon at his farm. Breed horses. Arya always loved horses and, since she’s taught Tia how to ride, Tia’s grown fond of them as well. It could be a good life for them. She is tired of killing. (It’s poison too.)

Jon cups her shoulders when he pulls back. He’s smiling, crinkles fanning out from his teary eyes. “And where have you been, young lady?”

Arya just grins. Here they are, then, beneath the heart-tree once more. As much as she wants to meet Sansa’s man and get the measure of him, Arya is grateful he wasn’t here for this. This is just for them. The last of the Starks.

“Mama,” a little voice says. “Peh. Peh!”

“You haven’t eaten?” Sansa asks, looking at Jon.

“You didn’t show. She wouldn’t stop asking for you, so we went back. The guards told me you’d returned.” He smiles at Arya. “Perhaps we can eat together. All of us. At the mere. Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” she says, beaming.

Jon nods, eyes shifting between her and Sansa and the toddler. Oh, the toddler! Abashed, Arya whirls around with a friendly smile. This was why she came, after all. To meet her niece. The latest Stark and the future Queen in the North sits on her mother’s hip, her round-cheeked face buried in the hair tumbling over Sansa’s shoulder.

“Hello, princess,” Arya says in her kindest voice. “I’m your aunt Arya.”

Iselinde burrows deeper into the crook of Sansa’s neck.

“Are you shy, sweet girl?”

At the term of endearment, Iselinde turns her head slightly to peer at Arya.

"Did you like that better? Hm? Sweet girl," Arya says and Iselinde relaxes a little more. “Is that what your papa calls you? It's what my father called me.”

“Baba?” Iselinde says, her little hand tucked under the neckline of Sansa’s dress.

“Yes. Your papa. Where is he hiding, anyway? I’d like to meet him.”

“Baba,” Iselinde says, stretching out her arms even though there’s only one man there.

Something inside Arya twists. Her gaze shifts to Jon. The old posture is back; his face is as red as the weirwood leaves above. When Iselinde calls for him again, he takes her into his arms, moves next to Sansa, and stares at the ground with his head bowed as if Mother glared down at him from the heavens. Sansa, however, stands tall with the sharp angle of her chin in the air, eyes a cool shade of blue. Iselinde is positioned between them and now, finally, Arya sees that while the girl doesn’t have Jon's coloring, she has his nose and his mouth and his long, dark lashes. She looks just like him.

Whatever twisted inside Arya earlier now bubbles. Her lips twitch. Everything slots into place. Jon and Sansa’s strange behavior. The odd tension. How Sansa wouldn’t stop talking about him while he was gone only to give him the cold shoulder when he returned with another woman. How, no matter how much Arya despised the Dragon Queen, she couldn’t match the blazing hatred Sansa felt for her. How Jon and Sansa either bickered or didn’t talk to one another at all, but still always turned to each other whenever something was wrong. How Jon seemed to crave Sansa’s approval while still pushing her away. How it wasn’t Arya or even Bran he looked at one last time before leaving them on that pier but Sansa.

At last, Arya understands the truth some part of her must’ve known for years but couldn’t take to heart.

She bursts out laughing.

She laughs and laughs and her knees give way and she collapses on the mossy godswood floor and her stomach hurts and tears leak from her eyes and it’s not that funny, really, it's not funny at all--and yet she can stop herself. She keeps laughing and laughing and laughing until the laughter turns into wheezing--

“Perhaps you should calm down before you wet yourself.”

The laughter catches in Arya’s throat; she sits up and glares at her sister. “That happened _once_.”

Sansa looks down at her with an arched brow. Jon still looks like a little boy caught stealing oatcakes from the kitchen. And that’s enough for Arya to laugh again. This time Iselinde joins in--and her laughter is so infectious her parents soon laugh too, despite themselves. They laugh not with Arya, though, but with one another, and share the tender look of proud parents (of a man and woman in love)--

Arya gags and gets to her feet, brushing pine needles off her bum. “You two are disgusting. But I’m sure you know that already.”

Jon’s smile fades. Sansa looks so unperturbed it’s almost provoking. But Iselinde’s good mood remains.

“Am,” she says, pointing at the wolf with yellow-red fur.

“That’s Lamb,” Sansa says. “Ghost has a pack of his own. They live here too.”

Grateful for the distraction, Arya kneels by the wolf and lets her sniff at her and lick her mouth. The rosehip bush rustles, but the littermate that shares Lamb's coloring stays hidden for now. Not even when Lamb shows her approval and lets Arya lean against her and run her fingers through her thick fur do any of the other wolves approach. Lamb is apart from them, then, Arya supposes. _I know the feeling_ , she thinks as she lets the soft fur soothe her. As she lets the truth land. Crash.

 _Fuck_.

“Peh,” Iselinde says.

“You’ll get your pears, sproutling.” Sansa looks at Arya. “We have to eat now or she’ll become a handful. Are you still starving or did we ruin your appetite?”

“You did a bit, yeah.”

Sansa hides behind her mask, still. But Jon looks at Arya with big, brown eyes, pleading silently. _Please. For me._

Arya heaves a sigh; Jon tenses up, shoulders raised to his ears.

“I don’t like this,” she says and his eyes fall shut. “I don’t like it one bit. But…”

Jon’s eyes open; he holds his breath.

“I can eat.”

The breath he held rushes out from between lips that don't quite smile, as if he knows better than to see something grand in the smallest gesture. With Iselinde back on his shoulders, he leads the way to the mere. He keeps a brisk pace, sometimes jogging a step here or jumping a step there, to entertain his daughter whenever her chanting for _pehs_ sounds a little too desperate. 

Sansa, however, makes sure she and Arya sag behind. “Are you all right?” she asks, quietly.

“No.”

“Do you think you will be?”

“Don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Sansa’s nostrils flare when she takes a calming breath. “You can’t separate us, no, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re a family, now.”

“You were always a family.”

“No. We were _not_.” Sansa stops Arya with a hand on her arm. “Not Jon and I. He was never to me what he was to you. And we’ve spent more time apart than together. When we met again at Castle Black, we were little more than strangers, Arya, and--”

“Is that when it started?”

“Not physically.”

Arya gags again.

“Stop being a child.”

“I can’t help it. It literally makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Do you think you can control yourself in front of our daughter? She doesn't need to see that."

"Maybe you should've thought about that before you fucked him."

"Yes. Maybe I should have. But it's too late now, isn't it."

“Why haven’t you married him? You say you love him, _deeply_ , but you know how he feels about being a bastard. If you loved him as much as you claim, you should’ve wed him before she was born. And now you have another one on the way… So, what, he’s good enough for Queen Sansa to bed but not to wed?”

Sansa’s cheeks burn red and Arya steels herself for a slap she’ll take proudly. But it never comes. Sansa only looks away.

“It’s complicated,” she murmurs. “I’ve made many mistakes since Jon returned to me--and he’s made mistakes too. But, if it’s any comfort, we are marrying. In two weeks. When I saw you…” Her lashes flutter; when she looks back at Arya, it’s with misty eyes. “I don’t even believe in the gods anymore, but I have prayed for your return. We really want you to be there. We’ve missed you. So much. But, if you can’t, we’ll understand.”

 _We. We we we._ Arya balls her hand into a tight fist to stop herself from screaming.

“If you decide to stay, though," Sansa says, "your friend is welcome too. She doesn’t have to hide in the woods or wherever she is. I really would love to meet her. Unless…” Sansa averts her eyes. “Unless you’re too ashamed of us.”

Shame does wash over Arya, then. But not over that. She was so certain Sansa deemed her an unworthy confidant, it never occurred to her that Sansa's secrecy really was a fear of rejection. Of Arya rejecting _her_.

_Tell her._

Arya bites her lip.

_Just tell her._

Sansa's brow knits. "What is it?"

Arya's missing hand tingles again; she moves her arm restlessly.

“She’s..." _Go on._ "She not my friend.”

Sansa's frown deepens. Arya counts five excruciatingly long breaths before Sansa's features smooth out with understanding.

“ _Oooh_. That’s…” Her lips move soundlessly. “That's wonderful. I’m happy for you.”

“Don’t tell Jon.”

“I won’t. But, Arya… He won’t mind. The Free Folk love freely. He’s used to it. And, well, we can’t really judge, can we?”

“It’s not the same. It’s _really_ not. Don’t you dare say it is. What Tia and I have is not _disgusting_.”

“No, of course not,” Sansa whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that it is.” Her chin quivers, tears returning to her eyes. “What Jon and I have might be. I’ve thought about it many times. Perhaps we’ve been through so much horror, something in us broke. Perhaps we’re broken in similar ways--and that’s why we fit together so well. Perhaps that’s all this is, but I don’t care--” Her voice breaks, tears now trickling down her cheeks. “He makes me happy and I make him happy and we will marry whether you’re here or not, but it would mean the world to us if you _stayed_. You can run away afterwards. I won’t stop you. I just really want you by my side when I marry the man I love. And if you can’t stay for us, if you really can’t, maybe you can stay for other people who have worried about you. Uncle Edmure, Robin, Davos, Sam, and…” Brushing away her tears with her fingertips, Sansa draws in one shuddering breath after another until she calms. “Gendry is invited. But if you don’t want him there, I will write to him and tell him he cannot come.”

Then she quiets, but she doesn’t turn still like a statue. She doesn’t turn hard like a stone. She just stands there with her head bowed humbly and remnants of tears glittering on her cheeks. One hand cups her small belly. Arya doesn’t think she’s aware of it. It’s just a comfort, a way to ground herself while she waits for her sister’s verdict.

Up ahead, Jon has grown small against the blue horizon. Arya can just make out the red-brown glow of Iselinde’s hair beneath the spring sun. Her little niece, soon to be a big sister...

Shaking her head, Arya tuts at Sansa. “This really isn’t fair; you leave me no choice. What kind of monster would say no to a crying pregnant woman?”

Sansa sucks in a breath. “Really?”

“We’ll stay for the wedding. No longer than that. And I’ll have to ask Tia first, but I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.”

The smile spreading on Sansa’s face isn’t wide or open-mouthed, and yet she beams brighter than the sun above them. She even moves on an impulse to hug Arya, but Arya flinches instinctively, and Sansa pulls back, smile dimming.

“Thank you,” she says, still sincere, still teary-eyed. “Thank you, Arya. And you’re both welcome at Winterfell, of course. You and your… You and Tilia. Your room is just as you left it. You don’t have to stay in the woods.”

“You really are crying at everything.”

“Yes.” Sansa smiles through her tears. “But I mostly cry at happy things now. Because of Jon."

Arya thinks about her secret sorrow. The one she’s carried like a stone in her heart. But she was wrong. Jon didn’t come back _less_. He came back with a broken heart; he came back buckling beneath the weight of his pain--and then everything just got worse.

Sansa said his time in the valley healed him--and maybe it did--but Arya knows now that Sansa healed him too. He found home with her and, one by one, he must’ve plucked his sorrows from his heart and let her hold them for a while until he was ready to let them fall. Until he was ready to move on, no longer bowed or bent or broken.

Arya won’t show Sansa that pain--she won’t show it to anyone--but she can pluck it from her heart and let it fall. She can follow her brother’s path to the mere, feeling a little lighter.


	33. The Link Between Them

Their gazes linger on her arm for a beat too long. Search her face, her hand, her throat, any stretch of exposed skin. They look for scars and she has them. Old and new and ancient. They care, she knows, and yet she feels like a woman stolen by slavers and put on display. As if they’ll command her to open her mouth any moment so they can inspect her teeth and nod to one another, pleased. _“Has she been trained in the arts of seduction? Has a healer inspected her womb? Can she carry children?”_

Arya shudders. Drinks of her wine. (Arbor gold dry and cool on her tongue.) Takes control. Knows just how. People love talking about themselves; Jon and Sansa are no exception. Arya drives the most mundane interrogation easily, has done it many times before. _There’s a port by Eastwatch, I hear. So the Vale is a part of the North now? What kind of horses are you breeding, Jon? How did you get Shadow?_

When Queen Sansa talks about her kingdom, and Farmer Jon talks about his work, things are perhaps not personal but pleasant enough. When Arya runs out of mundane questions, though, and has to become a little personal after all-- _how many pups does Ghost have? When is Iselinde’s nameday? What was her first word?_ \--Jon and Sansa become _… we._

Oh, they control themselves. They do. When Sansa tenderly removes a bit of pear caught in Jon’s beard from their daughter’s messy eating, Jon, equally tenderly, takes her hand and catches himself just before he lifts it to brush a kiss to her knuckles. When Jon lovingly tucks a swath of hair behind Sansa’s ear before their daughter can grab it with sticky fingers, Sansa, equally lovingly, gazes at him through her lashes and catches herself just before she leans in to brush a kiss to his cheek. They mean well, they do, but their restraint only makes it even more obvious what they’ve become.

“So where do you live now?” Jon asks. “Braavos?”

“Sometimes,” Arya says and smiles at her wonderful little niece who has the good sense to distract them by toddling over to Lamb with a ham slice clutched in her hand. She drops it on the ground with an “Am!” and toddles back to her mother’s lap where she picks up some ham for herself. “You walk so well, sweet girl.” Arya looks at the proud parents. “Has she walked long?”

As with all other questions they have replied to as a _we_ , Jon and Sansa turn to one another before answering--and Arya uses the opportunity to sneak another bit of food into her napkin. By now it holds a treasure trove of goodies: a heel of bread with a flaky crust. A hard-boiled egg. Small garlic-and-rosemary stuffed sausages. A plum. A chunk of hard cheese. One oatcake with raisins. Things that won’t spoil in the heat of her balloon sleeve once she smuggles it inside and laces the sleeve shut.

“...and _that’s_ when she took her first steps. Not to get to me or to Jon, but to cuddle with the puppies.”

“Ooff?” Iselinde asks, looking up at her mother, one hand covered in hard-boiled egg yolk and the other shining with butter.

“Yes.” Sansa ruffles her hair gently. “The puppies. And then Little Sam and Eddy _finally_ got to pick one puppy each. They’ll be old enough to leave their mother in a few weeks, so they’ll take them back to Deep Lake after the wedding. They live at the Wall now. Started restoring the keep, oh, half a year ago now?”

“Five months,” Jon says around a mouthful of bread.

“Yes. Once it’s in a better condition, we’re founding our own academy. For men _and_ women.”

Sansa sits a bit taller as she says it--and Jon gazes at her with so much pride he lights up from within. He keeps doing that, looking at her in a sappy sort of way Arya has never seen him look at anyone even though...

“You don’t even like Sansa.”

With his fork halfway to his gaping mouth, Jon freezes and looks about as surprised as Arya feels. The words tumbled out quite on their own and she knows she should control herself now, not let anything else tumble out, but the petulant little sister still rules her mouth. “You said she thinks she’s better than everyone else.”

Jon’s brows knit. Sansa, who’s been eating with a healthy appetite so far, lowers her fork slowly and looks at Jon. Arya’s heart beats a little faster with excitement (with shame).

“Smarter, I think.” Jon runs his fingers over his beard, pondering. “Aye, that’s what I said. And you defended her. Said she’s the smartest person you know.”

“She did?” Sansa regards her with an amused quirk of her lips. “Thank you, Arya.”

“To be fair to Arya,” Jon says with a casual shrug, “she didn't know a lot of people.”

Sansa lets out an offended gasp, a hand to her chest, but a smile plays in the corners of her mouth and her eyes sparkle and Jon grins at her and she bites her lip and his eyes drop to her mouth and _seven bloody hells._

“This is a good sausage.” Arya chews noisily. “Not had a sausage in ages.”

Sansa’s head snaps to her. Their eyes meet. A smile twitches at Sansa’s lips and Arya’s own words wash over her, spreading heat in their wake as she understands where Sansa’s thoughts went. _Don’t you dare_ , she warns with her eyes. Sansa presses her lips together, but can’t stop the corners of her mouth from curling up.

“What?” Jon says, watching them over the rim of his wine cup. “What is it?”

Sansa’s lips are trembling now. Jon’s expression flows from bemused to understanding to a little shocked to, finally, grinning crookedly.

“Well,” he says, nodding at Arya’s half-eaten sausage, “if that’s how you do it, that might be why it’s been a while.”

That breaks Sansa’s control. The laughter flows out of her, pulling Arya along, and they giggle together like when they were girls and Arya snuck into Sansa’s bedchambers to get away from the monsters lurking in the dark corners of her room, and they lay under the covers and whispered for hours, muffling their laughter in the pillows lest Mother and Father heard them. 

But then Jon starts laughing too, as if he understands the joke when he doesn’t, and Sansa leans into him and he leans into her, even wraps an arm around her, and they look so _together_ , Arya’s stomach hurts.

They don’t even notice that she stops laughing and something ugly within rears its head.

“I should’ve known,” she says. “That this would happen.”

Sansa regains control, her laughter hiccuping to a stop. Tears of joy glitter in her lashes. “That what would happen?”

“You two. Together.”

The lovebirds exchange a sickly sweet look. “Were we that obvious? Sansa murmurs and the smile on her lips says she wants to hear a yes. She wants to hear, “ _Oh, yeah. Everyone knew how in love you two were but you_.” She wants the validation, wants to bask in this fucked up thing that took two people who might’ve loved Arya, yeah, but not each other--never each other--and still managed to create a _we_.

“Nah,” Arya says with a smug tilt of her chin. “I should’ve known because one of you was practically raised by Cersei, and the other’s a Targaryen. You didn’t stand a chance, did you.”

Jon takes on the color of his bone white tunic. Mumbling something about washing, he scoops up the sticky Iselinde and carries her to the Stark gray pavilion where servants wait until they’re needed. He’s slouching again, buckling beneath the weight of Arya’s judgment. All the good food she just ate lies like a greasy lump in her stomach. She feels Sansa’s gaze on her like Mother’s hand falling on her shoulder when Arya tried running off before Mother saw the state of her and asked, _“Arya Stark. Why were you not at your embroidery lesson and why are you half drenched in mud?”_

“Was that really necessary?”

“I was joking. It was a joke. I thought we could laugh about it.”

“ _We_ can,” Sansa says. _We. We we we_. “But you keep looking at us as if we’re revolting and--”

“You are.”

“Yes. You’ve made that clear. But you trained as a Faceless Man. You’re supposed to be good at hiding how you feel. It shouldn’t be this difficult for you to be nice--”

Sansa’s mouth falls open with a soft exhale. Then she closes her eyes and shakes her head. At herself, Arya can tell, for she chuckles under her breath too. Quickly, Arya smuggles the bundle into her sleeve and laces it shut. She’s done by the time Sansa opens her eyes. They’re kind and understanding now, her eyes, and so is her voice when she speaks again in a more intimate tone.

“When Jon returned to Winterfell, I was not nice to him. I was too hurt to be nice. And I was too afraid to tell him just how hurt I was. Anger was easier. It took me a long time to find the courage needed to be honest with him. Too long. Things between us were already complicated and I made it even worse. I don’t want to see you make my mistake. I know he wasn’t very forthcoming back then, but he’s changed--we both have--and we’d much rather hear your thoughts and feelings properly than snide remarks and insults veiled as jokes.”

“I’m not a child, Sansa, and you’re not my mother.”

“You’re hurting him,” Sansa says, softly. “And I don’t think you want to. Not really.”

Arya looks away, feeling the child after all. Scolded. Sullen. Shamed.

“I have to go to him,” Sansa says, rising to her feet. “I know you need time. So take your time. Once you’re ready, we’ll be there."

There’s a jetty at the mere Arya doesn’t remember from her childhood, and a rowboat moored to it. _The Minnow_ is written on the hull in Sansa’s pretty handwriting. Another reminder that Arya knows neither of her siblings anymore. Jon builds things now. Has built his farm, apparently, and probably that boat and the jetty too. He wants to show her the farm later, he said. Arya pulls up a knee to her chest and leans her arm on it and her cheek on her arm, watching the place she very briefly considered making her home as if working on a farm would magically heal all the fractures inside her until she looked as wholesome as Jon.

When Sansa returns, a servant with kind brown eyes and gray-streaked hair has joined her. As Sansa settles back down on the cushions spread out beneath the chestnut tree, the servant starts clearing the low table of dirty dishes. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows. She has scars too. Oblong welts. As if someone’s pressed a fire iron against her forearms over and over. As if someone has branded her like a slave.

Arya’s missing hand itches; she scratches the stump absentmindedly, glancing at the woman’s arms.

“Her husband,” Sansa says once the servant has left and the table holds only water, wine, and cups. “He was a bad man.”

“Was?”

“Kari killed him. With the help of her sister.”

“Good.”

“Yes. Sisters are good to have.”

Even if her mouth doesn’t, Sansa’s eyes smile--but before it's done much to mend the frayed bond between them, her attention is drawn away again. Always an eye and an ear on her cub, that mother wolf. With a hand resting on her barely-there bump, Sansa beams at her daughter running toward them and calling for her direwolf. Lamb springs to her feet, perky-eared. And when Jon holds up a stick she even wags her tail, more an excited dog than a fearsome beast. Their game of fetch is a sweet thing. Jon throws the stick and Iselinde and Lamb race after it. To keep the toddler’s pace, Lamb leaps to and fro, darts back and forth. Once Iselinde reaches the stick, Lamb picks it up between her teeth and so they run back to Jon, feet and paws flying over the tussocks. There Jon catches his daughter and, laughing, tosses her in the air while she shrieks with giggles--and then they go again, the girl's laughter ringing out over the fields. 

It's infectious enough that Arya finds herself laughing as well despite it all. For a bit, at least. Until she remembers.

When Iselinde falls and Jon gives his daughter encouraging words as she gets back up, when Sansa gives that gentle, loving smile as she looks on with her stomach just starting to swell with another babe, Arya does remember Father's voice. She does remember Mother's smile. Easily. Painfully. 

(She remembers a time when Arya was Jon’s defender and Sansa the one who hurt him.)

As a Faceless Man, Arya can walk through life with sardonic detachment--and she has. But just as she’s no longer the little girl who left Winterfell the first time, neither is she the young woman who left it the second time. That woman used the skill as a crutch until she didn’t know how to function in the world without it. She’s somewhere in between, now--and something else too. She’s old and new. The same and different. Just like Jon. Just like Sansa. But while the new Jon and Sansa fit together well and form a sweet little _we_ , Arya doesn’t fit at all. To fit, she has to be No One wearing Arya’s skin.

She has to put a smile back on her face and pretend, be pleasant but not personal, for it’s hauntingly familiar, this afternoon--and yet so wrong a wound long since scarred splits open again.

Some hours later, she leaves the mere feeling as if she’s sat in front of a campfire on a dark winter night. Half of her is warm and toasty; the other half is bitterly cold.

Maudlin thoughts keep her company on the way back to the hill. The horses look up from their grazing, ears flicking. Squirrel-like, Tia scampers down a big oak in which she must’ve sat looking out over the world. Growing up on the wharf, taking jobs on ships ever since she was little, she’s good at climbing ropes and masts and even buildings. Trees too, it seems. She wears a wreath of birch leaves on her head, more a child of the forest now than one of Braavos.

Smiling a little, Arya pulls out the bundle of food from her sleeve. “Hungry?”

"Ate earlier but... Castle food?"

"Castle food."

Smiling breathlessly, Tia accepts the bundle as if it were frail as a snowflake and sits down on a mossy old stump. With the bundle in her lap, she unwraps it carefully and breathes out in awe when she sees the assortment of food much better than anything they’ve eaten since they left Volantis months ago. She savors each bit, eating so slowly Arya leaves her to it and finds the oiled leather swatch she uses to polish her blades. 

Once only the oatcake remains, Tia breaks it in two and offers Arya one of the halves. “You look like you could do with a treat.”

“I’ve had plenty already.”

“Take it.”

“I’m fine.” She keeps polishing. “Everything went well.”

“Then why do you look so troubled, though?”

Arya shrugs, wipes at her nose, keeps polishing. Tia wraps the two halves in the napkin and slides down on the ground. With her legs criss-cross, she holds out her arms in invitation. Arya sighs heavily, lays her weapons aside, and rests in her wife’s lap for a moment, her head pillowed on Tilia’s thigh and her nose buried in the folds of her tunic that smells of grass and horse.

Every morning, Tilia braids her hair in the neat and tight Braavosi style designed to keep it from whipping in your eyes when ocean gales hit the city. It’s getting long again, Arya’s hair. Past her shoulders. Carefully, Tia removes the leather tie and starts unraveling the braid so she can finger-comb the lengths in soothing motions. With every gentle stroke, Arya’s defenses fall away until everything catches up with her and makes her feel after all. All the joy and relief and nostalgia and disappointment and _hurt_ create a turmoil that can’t decide whether it wants to rage or whirl.

_I used to be his favorite._

Arya squeezes her eyes shut so hard her brow furrows. Sits. Exhales. Runs her sleeve beneath her nose. “I could murder an ale,” she says and forces a bright smile on her face. “C’mon. Let me buy you a proper northern ale.”

* * *

Arya knows the Smoking Log as a place filled with more locals than travelers and busier in fall and winter than in spring and summer. They have two good rooms and a handful of cramped ones that are let out so rarely, whores use them to entertain their clients after the brothel burned down many years earlier. Tonight, though, when Arya opens the door to the establishment, a roar of music and laughter, and the smell of too many people in too small a room, stream out into the darkening evening. 

Usually, this would’ve driven her away. No matter where she is, she avoids boisterous crowds if she can help it. Tonight, though, the longing for good, strong ale is enough for Arya to tug the hood to shadow her face and step inside with Tilia’s hand firmly in her own.

They find an empty stretch of bench at the corner of a table and wait for the serving maid to squeeze herself through the room (and past greedy hands looking to pinch and grab). A lock of hair that has escaped her bun flutters when she exhales sharply. The tight smile she wears softens when she sees that the newcomers are women.

“Busy night,” Tia says with a friendly smile.

The serving maid rolls her eyes, nodding. “It’s the royal wedding. They all want a chance to play…” Her eyes narrow when they land on Arya. “Aren’t you--”

She draws in a big breath, but before she can declare to the world that the Hero of Winterfell has returned at last, Arya silences her with their last gold dragon pressed into her palm. 

“I appreciate the discretion,” she says, eyes firm. “Your best ale, if you please. And keep our tankards full. My sister will pay.”

The maid curtsies. Arya watches her squeeze her way back to the bar even though she can feel Tilia’s eyes on her. Wondering about the wedding, Arya knows, but how is she supposed to explain that her brother is marrying their sister? The brother who gave her Needle, who loved her just the way she was when the girls she grew up with never deemed her good enough, who was brave and kind and strong.

The brother who was her hero.

The bard next to them lets his keyed fiddle quiet for a moment to take a whore onto his lap. The woman has faded bruises on her upper arms. When he tugs her skirts up to get his hand under there, Arya catches a glimpse of a scar on the inside of her thigh. Fresh enough that she can still see the suture holes, even if the thread is removed. Got a rough client barely two weeks ago, Arya would gather--

“Don’t.” Tilia’s voice in her ear. “Not here. You don’t cause trouble in your own quarters.”

“I’m not the one causing trouble. I could end it, though.”

Tilia takes her arm beneath the table. “You’re upset,” she says, quietly. “You know it’s not a good night for that, then. Drink your ale. Enjoy the music.”

Arya clenches her jaw and looks away. Tankards are placed on the table; she grabs one and downs half its contents. Still holds it when she puts it back down. Restlessness simmers in her body, urging her to run, to act, to change--but she promised to be at the wedding. She _wants_ to be at the wedding. And if she can't end trouble, the ale will do a good enough job silencing the restlessness for a moment. Fingers tight around the tankard, she drinks one mouthful after another while taking in the room and listening to the chatter beneath the cloak of music. 

Later this week, they’ll play for the Queen, this lot. Those lucky enough to be chosen will later play at the royal wedding. Rivalry will blossom between them eventually, she’s sure, but for now the competition is far away enough for the musicians to play together with the unbridled enthusiasm of a shared passion. When a lutist plucks the opening notes to _the Bear and the Maiden Fair_ , a flutist joins in, and then a singer, and a cornettist, and a spinetist...

In barely a moment, the whole inn sings and plays along. As many songs popular in Westeros find their way across the Narrow Sea to play in alehouses and brothels and stages, Tilia joins in too. She sings along to _The Lusty Lad_ as well, and to _The Dornishman’s Wife_ and to _Her_ _Little Flower_. When a drunk wildling hops up on a table and starts dancing in the way of the Free Folk, she claps her hands in time with the music, laughing, and for a moment Arya forgets why they’re here. For a moment she just sits back with her third tankard of ale and watches her wife enjoying the evening despite the tense silence between them. But then, as the notes of _Off to Gulltown_ ring out and fade, and a slow and quiet melody takes its place, the atmosphere changes. The wildling man plonks down on a bench. The serving maids sink down wherever there’s room. The innkeep stops scrubbing the bar. Everyone stills to listen to a song entirely new to Arya about a Winter Queen who loved a cursed man.

Haunting like the wind on snowless winter nights, delicate like the first frost on autumn mornings, the song seeps across the room and touches every heart there. Every heart but hers. For in verse after verse, the bard sings of a queen who was as lonely as she was beautiful until she met a man who stole her heart. He was sweet beneath the sun, that man, but turned into a feral beast beneath the moon. He fell to all fours, then, and grew fur as white as snow and eyes as red as the blood he craved. And each time he changed, changing back became more difficult. To ensure he wouldn’t hurt her people, the Queen locked him up every night and stayed by his cell and sang to him to soothe the beast that snarled and growled, to remind him what he was deep down, until he turned back into a man at the break of dawn. But the man knew the people feared him, knew they would never accept him as their king, and to save the Queen from having to choose between him or her people, to save her from having to sing night after night when she needed her sleep, he fled into the heart of winter where the sun never shone and her singing did not reach him. Without her love, he forgot how to be a man and stayed a wolf night and day, wild and feral for evermore. And without his love the Queen grew lonely again. Lonely and sad and cold--and her lands grew cold with her. If only they had known the cure. To break the curse, all they needed was to kneel before a tree with bark as white as snow and leaves as red as the blood in their broken hearts and promise each other forever, but neither of them knew and in the end, the Winter Queen and the Ghostly Wolf die alone and lonely and apart, in a land of always winter.

“If only they had known,” the bard sings. “Oh, if only they had known…” 

He plucks the final chord on his lute. For a beat, the room is more quiet than death. Then comes a sniffle and another and another. Handkerchiefs and sleeves rustle as people wipe their tears. A serving maid sobs into the arms of the wildling man. The innkeep has tucked his wife close and presses a kiss to her hair. Even Tia is wiping at her eyes.

Arya rolls hers. Oh, it's a beautiful song. It is. But Sansa must’ve paid handsomely for it to spread over the North and manipulate people into supporting the wedding--and that tarnishes its beauty a fair bit. Shaking her head, Arya huffs out a breath, finishes her tankard of ale, and signs to Tilia that she wants to leave.

Mounted, they follow the narrow road out of Wintertown. When it forks into two, Arya pulls her horse to a stop and looks up the road that would take them to the Winterfell. Braziers burn on the battlements. Torches corner the gate. Men patrol the walls. They’ll know her, though. Everyone knows her here. Essos is easier that way.

“Farran?” Tia asks, voice low. “Is your sister getting married?”

“Yeah.” Arya sighs. “We’re invited.”

“And are we going?”

They’re probably in bed by now, Jon and Sansa. In the same bed. In Mother and Father’s bed. Arya shudders. She didn’t _actually_ promise, though, did she? She swore no oath--and even if she had, neither Jon nor Sansa bothered keeping their word. He vowed to never stop fighting for the North and gave it away; she promised to keep his secret and shared it the same day. So what if Arya rides away in the night? Winterfell isn’t home anymore. Ned Stark’s pack scattered a lifetime ago; Jon and Sansa have formed a pack of their own. They don’t need Arya to be the link between them anymore--and she belongs elsewhere now.

* * *

* * *

Holding one boot, Jon stands at the open window and stares out at the courtyard. The other boot lies discarded on the floor by the bed. As he was undressing, he heard someone shouting outside and went to the window to see whether it was Arya riding into Winterfell. It wasn’t. Just a guard tripping over a black cat and cursing it to high heavens. That was a long moment ago. Iselinde has fallen asleep and sleeps soundly too. Lamb has dozed off. Sansa herself is even yawning and blinking heavily. Had this been any other night, they would be in the other chamber by now, her and Jon. But tonight his head is too loud, he said, and he still stands by the window, the breeze playing with his hair, rippling in his tunic.

Gingerly, Sansa leaves the bed and snakes her arms around him from behind. Despite the draft, he’s warm. She noses at his neck until his hair parts and she can breathe in the scent of his skin.

“I thought I was done being ashamed.” Jon’s voice is hoarse, quiet; Sansa holds him a little closer. “I really did. The way she looked at us…”

“Are you getting cold feet?”

“No.“ He brings Sansa’s hand to his lips for a kiss before holding it close to his heart. “When she said she’d stay for the wedding, did she look like she meant it?”

“I think so. Give her time. We can’t expect her to accept it right away.”

“But… Why isn’t she here? If she planned on staying, why wouldn’t she stay in her chamber? She might be halfway to White Harbor by now, for all we know.”

“She wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Jon puts the boot on the window sill and turns around, his arms encircling Sansa’s waist; she rests her hands on his chest. “Bran told me she was running away from her demons. That she wouldn’t return until she was ready to face them. But I know what it’s like to return to Winterfell and feel as if you don’t belong anymore. I know how difficult that is. Remember when you caught me trying to leave? That wasn’t the first time I was about to leave that day. But Tormund intervened--and he was the one who dragged me here in the first place too. We wouldn’t have all this without him.”

Sansa strokes his hair from his eyes. “You’re going to be her Tormund?”

“After I returned from Dragonstone, we fought for our lives and our home but not for one another. We all waited for someone else to reach out and none of us really did and it all went to shit. I know Tormund is… _Tormund_ , but you never doubt that he loves you, do you.”

“No,” she says, adjusting the neckline of his tunic, “you don’t.”

“I don’t think it’s enough to tell her we’re here for her. We have to show it. _I_ have to. Before she runs away.”

Sansa nods and kisses him on the lips. “I’ll stay up.”

* * *

* * *

Tilia shakes out their sleeping skins and drapes them over the ground. She stokes life back into the fire. She skins and guts the rabbit she found in one of the snares she set up earlier that day and sets it to grill it over the flames. She tends to the horses. Heats up water in a pot while breaking off birch leaves from which she’ll brew tea. Removes the rabbit to let it cool. Drains the tea. Pours it into two wooden cups they bought at a festival in Norvos. Finds the napkin with the oatcake broken in two.

Guilt gnaws at Arya. She doesn’t complain much, her wife. Wharf rats learn to be quiet as mice when cats bristle and hiss. They learn to be busy too. Useful.

“I’m sorry,” Arya says.

“You’ve not done nothing,” Tia says, handing her a cup of tea.

“You’re angry with me. You always potter around when you’re angry.”

Tilia brushes the crumbs off the napkin. It’s linen, embroidered with the direwolf sigil, and most likely more expensive than most garments they own. “You should return this before we leave. I’m not a thief.”

Arya laughs. “Yeah, you are.”

"Not like this." She starts folding the napkin. “Did you tell her about me?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And we’re still invited, but you don’t want to go.” Tilia swallows, staring down at the napkin now folded into a neat square. “Just be honest, Farran. You’re ashamed of me and you don’t--”

“No!” Arya takes her hand, the napkin fluttering to the ground. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of _them_!”

“Them?” Tilia’s brow furrows. “Why?”

“Because…” Arya shrugs helplessly; Tilia slips out of her grip, shifts away from her. “Sansa is marrying Jon.”

Tilia stills, the furrow of her brow deepening as she turns back, slowly. “Your… _brother_ Jon? I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, that makes two of us.” Arya sighs, deeply, rubbing at her forehead. “I wish we had more ale.”

“Is that allowed now, then? You said the Lannister queen and her brother almost killed your brother Bran cos he caught them.”

“Jon is not my brother by blood, Tia. He’s my cousin. He’s--”

Tia’s sharp gasp cuts her off. “The ghostly wolf,” she whispers, rising gracefully to her feet with her eyes locked at the pale, one-eared wolf padding into their camp. “It’s here.”

“It’s all right,” Arya says, smiling. “He’s an old friend.”

Ghost is as big as she is now--bigger, even--and old and battle-weary. But when she wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his fur, it’s a familiar comfort that feels only good and right and soothing.

“I missed you, boy,” she whispers.

“He’s missed you too.”

Draped in a black cloak, sitting on a black horse, Jon would’ve blended into the inky black sky behind him if not for the moonlight gleaming in his unbound hair. He dismounts Shadow and walks closer, eyes moving over their campsite, the horses, Tilia, the sleeping skins laid out to be shared even though it’s no longer so cold out two friends must huddle for warmth to survive. Not even close.

His eyes snap back to Tilia, flit between her and Arya. “I didn’t really get the sausage joke, did I?”

“No,” Arya says, “you didn’t. This is Tilia.” She takes Tilia’s hand, squeezes it three times. “My wife.”

Jon’s eyes grow rounder than the moon behind him. Then he tugs down the corners of his mouth, nodding as he looks out over the quiet wood below. “Can’t believe you got married before me.” He looks back at Arya, a crooked smile bending his lips. “Can’t believe you got married at all.”

“Just needed to meet the right person, I suppose.”

Jon’s mouth stretches into a full smile, eyes twinkling in the firelight. “I’m Jon. Arya’s brother. And this”--he nods at the wolf--”is Ghost. He won’t hurt you.”

“M’lord.” Tilia curtsies, head bowed a little.

“No need for that. Not a lord. Just a farmer now.”

Arya gives him a blank look. “A farmer marrying the Queen.”

“Yeah.” Jon rubs at his beard. “You mind if I steal my sister for a bit?” he asks Tilia. “Just need a word. Won’t take long.”

Tilia shakes her head and squeezes Arya’s hand three times before letting her go. Jon leads her away from the campsite, through fields where midnight mist clings to the grass and dampens their boots and trouser legs. Ghost pads along on quiet paws, his fur silver in the moonlight. A grazing deer lifts its head, ears flicking. It stares at Ghost for a beat before leaping away, into the wolfswood. Ghost stays where he is, close enough to Jon that he can reach out and find comfort in his soft fur if needed. And, when Jon slows to a stop, he does bury his hand in the scruff of Ghost’s neck as he looks at Arya with dark, wistful eyes.

“You’re leaving.”

“Haven’t decided.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to keep it all in, you know. If you feel left out, you can talk--”

“Sansa’s already given me this speech. Instead of letting things fester, I should just talk about my feelings. That’s what you came to say, right?”

“I came to say a lot of things.” He lifts one shoulder, smiling. “I talk now.”

“You really have changed.”

“In some ways. But I’m still me.”

Arya nods at him. “Talk, then.”

“Well, now it feels weird.” He smiles again, and she can’t help but smile too. “But I should anyway, right? Lead by example and all that.” He drags a hand through his hair, looking away, the other hand still finding comfort in Ghost’s fur. “After King’s Landing, I kept to myself. Saw Tormund once in a while but… I didn’t know who I was anymore. I just knew that, whoever that was, he didn’t deserve anything good in life. So I hid in the true North and just… waited for the end, I suppose. Then, two years ago, Tormund got tired of my moping and dragged me back here. Barely been back for a day before I wanted to leave.”

“Sansa was mean, I hear.”

“Yeah. She was hurt. Still carried all this resentment. I did too, in a way, but I don’t know. Suppose I’d hoped we could just forgive and forget and move forward. Doesn’t really work that way, though, does it? So I decided to leave. Without saying goodbye. And she caught me.”

“Was she angry?”

“She was _pissed_.” He lets out a breathy chuckle. “And that’s why I stayed. She had no faith in me anymore. When she looked at me, she saw a man without honor and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted her to look at me the way she used to. I wanted to be better. To prove her wrong. And… I wanted _her_. I still loved her. Never stopped.”

He pauses, then, waiting for a reaction, Arya knows, but she gives him none, just stands there with a hand in her pocket, waiting too, for him to say what he came to say.

Jon takes a deep breath, nodding when he exhales. “If you leave tomorrow because you can’t accept Sansa and me, I’m not going to stop you. And I won’t blame you either. It’s a bit weird. I get it. And, if you ever decide to come back after all--even if it takes another seven years or seventeen or thirty--you’ll be welcome. We won’t hold it against you. I promise. Winterfell will always be your home. But… I can’t help but think that’s not it. At least not all of it.”

He gives another pause; Arya still does nothing.

“I get why you’re holding back. Or I think I do, at least. Things weren’t good between us--any of us--last time, and it was mostly my fault. I know that. I kept you all at arm’s length and felt sorry for myself when you let me. I resented you for questioning me. Thought you should just have faith in me, all of you. And when _you_ had, I didn’t appreciate it properly. I took you for granted, Arya. It was wrong of me and I’m sorry. I truly am.”

His eyes are so earnest, so sincere, she has to look away before her defenses crumble and she starts weeping out here in the mist-cloaked grass. Ghost leaves Jon’s side and moves to her, nuzzling her hand.

“When I returned to Winterfell,” Jon says, “it wasn’t just difficult because Sansa was a bit awful or because I felt guilty or left out. It was difficult because it reminded me of everything I’d lost. Family and friends, aye, but most of all myself." He steps closer. "Is that how you feel?”

Arya shrugs, eyes stitched on the dark trees at the edge of the wolfswood.

“I can help,” Jon whispers. “Arya, I’d love to help. I might not know you anymore, but I still love you. I’ll always love you. No matter what you’ve done or what you’ve seen or what other people have done to you. You’re my little sister. Always. No matter what. And I really want to know the woman you’ve grown up to become, warts and all. If you’ll let me. But, if you don’t, if you’re not here tomorrow, I’ll understand.”

For a moment, he lingers in silence. Still waiting for her to say something, but all her words are lodged in her throat. It’s all too much and all she can do is lean closer to him, just rest her head against his shoulder for a moment and allow herself to feel more tired than anyone her age has a right to feel.

“I still left,” Jon says, voice as faint as the mist surrounding them, “twice before Iselinde was born. Once after. Because I needed to. Because Sansa needed me to. The road to healing is long and, sometimes, to keep moving forward, you have to move back." He cups her cheek with a warm, dry hand. "If you stay, it doesn’t mean you have to commit to anything. We can take this one day at a time. And, if you leave, you can always come back.” He angles her head down, his mustache tickling her scalp when he drops a kiss to her hair. “I hope I see you tomorrow.”

She watches him walk away, his dark silhouette soon swallowed up by the night. She doesn’t start moving herself until she hears the clops of Shadow echoing over the field. She doesn’t start weeping until the echoes fade and there’s nothing around her but mist and silence.

Tilia sits by the fire, unfocused eyes glittering like gold in the light of the flames. She doesn’t look up when Arya sits but acknowledges her return by scooting the smallest bit closer and laying a hand between them so that Arya can take it if she wants. And she does, squeezing it three times (getting three squeezes in return).

“I want to sleep,” Arya murmurs, eyes tired from the tears that fell as she walked back to camp. “Can we just sleep? I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

They lie down together beneath the old oak with Arya’s head on Tia’s shoulder, and their arms around one another and their legs entangled. One horse snorts. An owl hoots in the distance. The last of the fire crackles like bones breaking. Arya’s eyes slide shut. And, as she lies there, warm and safe in her wife’s arms, in the dark of night, her mouth begins to talk after all.

“I’ve been so many people. Before we met, before I became Farran, there were days when I didn’t remember who I was anymore. When I saw Jon again, how happy he looked, how free, I thought maybe I could have that too. Maybe we could stay with him. Work at his farm. Live by the lake there. No more killing. I could be Arya again.”

“Sounds lovely,” Tia murmurs, stroking her hair.

“Yeah. But it’s not that simple, is it? My father used to say we were a pack. That we should look after one another the way a pack does, but then we were separated and we forgot how. And if I want to stay here, even if it’s just for a little while, I have to remember what that’s like and I’m not sure I can do it. Especially not now. Last time, we were all on even footing and maybe it could’ve worked, but now they have a pack of their own.”

“He came here, though. In the middle of the night. That means something.”

“Yeah.”

“He seemed nice, I think.”

“He is nice. And so is Sansa. It’s just me. All day I’ve felt as if I’m ten again. Ten year old Arya.”

“What’s she like? Arya Stark.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Tia hums, twirling Arya’s hair around her fingers. “Remember when I showed you my old haunts.”

“Yeah, that was a good day.”

“It was. Until you tried to kill Dolo.”

Arya tightens her arms around her. “I had a very good reason, though.”

“Maybe you can do that--”

“Kill Dolo? I’d love to.”

“No,” Tia says, pinching her in the side. “Show me where you grew up and all. Where you used to play. Which trees you used to climb. Where you learned how to swim. I bet someone taught you, yeah? They didn’t just throw you in and told you to sink or swim.”

“No. My brothers taught me.”

“See, I’m learning lots already. Arya Stark is spoiled.”

Arya chuckles into the warm crook of Tia’s neck. “Do you think you could still love Arya?”

“Don’t know. Could Princess Arya love a wharf rat?”

“She already does,” Arya murmurs and presses a kiss to Tia’s collarbone. “You and me.”

Tia sighs contentedly into her hair. “You and me.”

Despite Arya's weariness, Tia falls asleep before she does. Arya turns around then, turns east, and watches the shape of Winterfell make a faint outline against a sky that's already paling into gray. She watches the glow of the braziers diminish as the world brightens. She watches the first rays of the rising sun break through the horizon. She watches them paint the outline of Winterfell gold. Only then does she sleep.


	34. The Wolves of Winterfell Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I know this is taking longer to wrap up than anticipated. I didn’t think I’d have enough steam to actually write about Arya acclimatizing once she returned, even if I’d headcanoned how it would happen. But as I have no plans on writing more fic atm, I realized I wanted to do it properly. I wanted to give them all a proper send-off, so to speak. Bran has his thing and is settled. Jon and Sansa are living their happily ever after. I wanted to give Arya some attention too, especially considering I'd already made up a backstory for her. I know it’s not everyone’s cuppa, though, so thank you for sticking around. And if you just want to get to the happy ending already, you won’t miss much if you skip (or skim) this chapter and the next. There are and will be Jonsa goodies throughout, the setting is and will remain Winterfell, and nothing terrible will happen, but the focus is on Arya. After that we’ll get the epilogue (or I certainly hope so lol. Pretty sure #35 will be the last chapter before the epilogue even if I have to make it 12k) and the epilogue will be centered around the Jonsa family. Thanks for reading!

Tilia gazes up at the blood-red crown of the heart-tree. They gave their vows before a tree like this. She found it grand with its brilliant leaves and pale trunk and carved eyes that cried tears the color of blood. Compared to this giant, though, the one that grows in King’s Landing is a mere sapling. 

“Can only weirwoods be heart-trees?” she asks.

“No,” Farran says. “But they usually are.”

“Can you just carve a face into any old tree, then? Could I do it?”

“I think the Children of the Forest have to do it. Nothing happens when a person does it. Come on.” Farran hooks her arm with hers and leads her on to a well-trodden path. “I’ll show you. There’s a false heart-tree in here.”

The warm light of a slowly setting sun paints the godswood amber and gold between the shadows. Tilia runs her fingers over bushes and branches they pass, leaves and buds rippling beneath her touch. Pale petals float in the breeze, scattering across the path and spreading the scent of cherry blossom through the godswood. She breathes in that scent, that northern air that carries no trace of fish entrails, turned clams, or sweaty saltwater-sprayed people. Smiling, she breathes in lungfuls of it.

As they walk deeper into the wood, however, new scents mingle with that of flowers. Grilled meat. Freshly baked bread. Something sweet too, of sugar and flour and butter. Tilia’s stomach rumbles. Farran slept until noon and, while they tucked into some grilled rabbit washed down with birch leaf tea, that was a meager lunch and hours ago too.

“There used to be more trees here,” Farran murmurs, her pace slowing. “A lot more.”

Then they round a fat oak and Farran stops entirely. Before them stands a large wooden pavilion. Spring flowers in colors pale and bright grow around it. Budding vines climb up trellises and wind around the columns holding up the roof. Beside it, in a clearing of fresh green grass dotted with violets and wild pansies, servants light braziers and torches and lanterns around a table buckling beneath good food. Tilia’s stomach rumbles again, but Farran only has eyes for the pavilion. Tilia follows her as she moves up the steps.

“This was a tree, once,” Farran says, quietly, as she gazes up at one of the columns. “I used to hate that tree.”

Tilia wraps her arm around Farran’s waist and rests her cheek on her shoulder. The column looks different from the rest with a patch more weathered into which a simple face is carved.

“It had been raining for days,” Farran says. “We were stuck inside and it was driving me half mad. Sansa and her stupid friends didn’t want to do anything fun. Just giggle about boys. Jeyne fancied Theon. I told her Theon would never marry someone like her, because he wouldn’t. Not a steward’s daughter. Sansa got angry with me, told me I was cruel. I tried to explain I didn’t mean to be cruel. I was just being honest. I didn’t understand that just because something’s true, it doesn’t mean you have to say it. Sansa didn’t believe me, though. Wouldn’t let me play with them. Picked Jeyne’s side even though she was always mean to me. On purpose too.”

Farran’s body tenses a touch; she’s quiet for a breath before continuing.

“When the rain finally stopped and we were let outside, the boys played with sticks in the godswood and Sansa and her friends spied on them, pretending to embroider or read or something. They kept giggling. The boys noticed. Theon noticed. And later that day, he and Jon came inside all muddy. Jon had a split lip. I remember that. The blood. When they went to Maester Luwin I asked what had happened. Jeyne said they were fighting over her. That both Theon and Jon were in love with her and wanted her for their own. She was boasting about it. Gods, I was angry. Wanted to strangle her. But it couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. I was Jon’s favorite and she hated me. Called me horseface and pissant. Jon would never love someone who hated me. He just wouldn’t. Couldn’t ask him, though. But Theon would tell me the truth. That was my mistake. He could be such a shit sometimes. He told me he’d teased Jon and Robb about marrying Sansa, and Jon… Jon got angry. Even though he wasn’t supposed to like her, wasn’t supposed to care. But he had told Theon he wasn’t good enough for her and then they had fought over it. Over _Sansa_.”

Farran reaches up and traces the lines of the carved face, the curve of the mouth, the narrow eyes, the long nose.

“Theon laughed at me and said, ‘Suppose she’s his favorite now.’ The next day I was…” Farran balls her hand into a fist and lets it drop. “I _hated_ her. She was taking my brother away from me, my best friend, and I was so hurt and I didn’t know what to do with it. I kept picking on her. Teased her about being too southern. Because she wasn’t like me or Jon. We were of the _North_. We belonged together. She didn’t. I wanted her to know it, I wanted Jon to remember it. But then, to mock me and the gods I believed in, she went to the godswood and picked some linden tree to pray to instead of the heart-tree. As if any old tree would do. I thought that was so stupid. It doesn’t work that way. But Jon… Jon carved that face. To make it real. Suppose he took pity on her because I’d been so mean, but in that moment… In that moment I thought Theon was right. Jon would forget me now. Sansa would become his favorite. Not me. I would lose him.”

Farran’s sigh fills the pavilion, her shoulder rising beneath Tilia’s cheek.

“You haven’t lost me.”

Tilia jolts at the sound of the hoarse voice behind them; Farran doesn’t react at all.

“And you’ll always be my favorite sister.”

“That doesn’t mean much.” When Farran turns around, she wears an easy smirk and a quirked brow. “Considering you only have one.”

Lord Jon grins at her, crinkles fanning out from his eyes.

When he came to their camp he looked plucked from a song, composed of mist and mystery, as if he’d fade if only the wind blew stronger. But in the waning daylight, he looks as real as the wood around them. Just an ordinary family man. A little girl sits on his shoulders, reddish brown locks peeking out from under a thin wool hat with flaps over the ears. A tall woman stands by his side. She wears no crown or fancy gown--in fact her periwinkle dress is almost simple--and yet she carries herself so like a queen Tilia becomes uncomfortably aware that neither she nor her worn clothes have gotten a good wash in far too long. 

There’s a wolf too. One with fur only a touch more yellow than the Queen’s red hair. The ghostly wolf looked fierce and battle worn; this one looks more like a dog than a wild creature. Tilia still presses closer to Farran, just to be safe.

“I didn’t remember all that,” the Queen says. “Bits and pieces, yes, but not all of it. I never realized why you were so angry. I thought you just hated me.”

“I never hated you. Not really.”

“I know, Arya. I never hated you either. And I shouldn’t have chosen Jeyne over you. I should’ve listened.”

Farran shrugs, sweeping her eyes over the clearing. “What happened here?”

“A storm. A twister ruined the linden grove. But Jon built this for us. For our family.” A smile warms the Queen’s handsome face. “I was hoping you’d still be here. We’re having grilled goose and peach cake. Your favorites. Well.” She clasps her hands before her, rubbing her palm with her thumb. “Used to be, at least. Will you stay for supper?”

* * *

All day they’ve stayed unseen without much effort. While palaces in Essos are lavish places with gilded statues, marble pillars, jewel-encrusted mirror frames, and gold-tasseled velvet, Winterfell is almost simple. In some ways it reminds Tilia of the streets of Braavos with its gray stone, cats on the hunt for rats, and people in linen, leather, and wool of earthy colors. She and a hooded Farran moved about the castle grounds in peace for hours. They fit right in.

They stay unseen now too, in a way. Tilia makes herself unnoticeable by copying the Queen. Lord Jon and Farran might forgo their napkins and grab goose legs with their hands to gnaw on, and wash it all down with plenty of ale, but the Queen drapes her napkin in her lap, cuts herself small bites of the goose breast on her wooden plate, and only sips her watered wine so Tilia does the same no matter how much her stomach growls at her to wolf down the food until she bursts.

Farran, however, makes herself unnoticeable by controlling the conversation. After some laughing over memories of the false heart-tree and its origins to lighten the mood, she dives directly into asking for updates about their friends and family. By the time the plates are cleared and their bellies full, neither she nor Tilia has said anything about their lives other than that they travel, have no place to call home, and live hand to mouth--and yet the Starks don’t pry. They accept the boundaries and calmly sip the hot tea the servants have poured them and wrap themselves in the furs the servants have brought.

It’s an odd thing, really, how they’re always around, those servants, always anticipating needs and meeting them before anyone’s said a thing. All while staying unseen too. (It’s an odd thing to see it from the other side.)

“You do this every night, don’t you?” Farran asks. “Eat out here.”

“When the weather allows it,” the Queen says. “I know the seasons turn more quickly now, but it might change again. We know better than to take spring and summer for granted. We’re enjoying it while it lasts.” Her daughter rubs her face against her mother’s arm, eyes drooping. The Queen helps her to the breast and snuggles back into the furs. “We like sitting beneath the stars too. We usually make up stories once they’re out," she says with a tender smile at her husband-to-be, "Jon the Storyteller and I.”

“Jon the _what_?”

“It’s what people call him now.”

“No they don’t,” Lord Jon says, laughing.

Farran grabs her tankard. “I need to hear this. Go on, Jon the Storyteller. Tell us a good one.”

Lord Jon rubs his beard and grabs his tankard too. “Suppose I could tell you the one about Isern and Lind. I didn’t make that one up but…”

In a soothing voice, Lord Jon weaves a story about a Child of the Forest and a mountain-dwelling giant who fell in love, a carved river with the same name as the sleepy princess, a well-tended garden on the northern moors, and children made out of stone and weirwood sap with copper-gold hair and sapphire eyes.

Tilia doesn’t remember her father much, doesn’t even know whether he ever told her stories, but as she listens to Lord Jon she thinks he must’ve. Why else would a warmth settle so in her chest? Why else would his northern burr wrap itself around her like the fur she’s burrowed into and make her feel little again? Safe and small and so sleepy she wants to lean her head on Farran’s shoulder and drift off to sleep the way the little princess has. But she doesn’t know the Starks yet, knows better to relax among strangers, and stays upright, sips her tea, and listens.

Once Lord Jon's done telling the story, Farran bites her lip and watches him thoughtfully. “You wrote the song. Didn’t you. I thought it was Sansa, but it was you. About the lonely queen and her wolf lover. A beautiful song. A bit sad, though.”

“Aye, it is sad. But I didn’t write it. Nor did Sansa.”

“We didn’t even know,” the Queen says, stroking her daughter’s back with an absentminded hand. “We heard the whispers first. Why hadn’t we wed? Wouldn’t it be nice to see me settled? Wouldn’t it be nice for the North to get some stability--and more princes and princesses too? At Iselinde’s nameday feast, once our guests were in their cups, some even hinted at it more or less discreetly to our faces. But we still didn’t know. Not until the band started playing a song everyone in the Great Hall seemed familiar with except us.”

“It was Sam,” Lord Jon says, giving the Queen a look so besotted Tilia has to avert her eyes for it feels private, somehow. It feels wrong to be part of it. “He still hasn’t admitted it. But when I asked him, he looked so ridiculously pleased with himself it has to be him--and he, if anyone, is the storyteller. Not me.”

“Yes, you are,” the Queen says. “You’re very good at it.”

“Nah,” Lord Jon says, but he’s smiling into his tankard and even in this scant light it’s clear his cheeks are pink.

“You really have changed,” Farran murmurs. “Suppose being a father does that.”

“It wasn’t…” Lord Jon quiets, stares at the tankard. Turns it in his hands. It’s carved from bone and engraved with a direwolf sigil. His lips part, but it still takes him a beat to start talking again. “When I was a prisoner in King’s Landing, in the dungeons, there was nothing to do, really. An Unsullied took pity on me. Gave me a book of bedtime stories that had belonged to Tommen Baratheon.” He smiles bitterly, drinks his ale, keeps the tankard in his hand, doesn’t look up at his audience. “After a while, I knew it by heart. Still do. Wasn’t much else to do but read or…” He expels a breath and looks up at the starry sky. “After that, once I was free, I just kept reading. Suppose I’ve learned a thing or two about it by now. Telling stories.”

Farran watches her brother as he watches the sky. Pain has brought a sheen to her wide hazel eyes.

“I tried getting you out,” she whispers.

Slowly, Lord Jon moves his gaze from sky to sister. “Yeah?”

“I wasn’t at my best. I didn’t have my faces. And it wasn’t--” She ducks her head, swallows. “It’s not easy, taking a new face. There are steps. If you’re not focused, it doesn’t work. And whenever I tried getting closer-- There were so many soldiers and I was…” A wrinkle forms between her brows. “I wasn’t myself. It took a while for it to hit, but when it hit...”

She shudders, fumbles after Tilia's hand beneath the table. Holds on tightly.

“Yeah," Lord Jon says. "Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Walking among it all…” Farran shakes her head. “I wasn’t at my best.”

They share a look so haunted, then, that Tilia’s stomach twists.

The news about King’s Landing traveled to Braavos rather quickly and speculation and fear spread across the city. The Dragon Queen was said to be dead, but where was her body? Where was her dragon? For weeks, they lived in fear of suffering the same fate before the abstract nature of that fear made it easy to shake off. No dragon was sighted. The news was word of mouth. Everybody knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, but no one had heard directly from a survivor and neither had Tilia. Not until years later.

They were in Norvos, she and Farran. At the festival where bears dance down the Sinner’s Steps to the ringing of the three bells. They were in the crowd of spectators when a dancing bear happened to knock over a torch. Nothing really happened. A priest’s robes caught fire another priest quickly stomped out. But Farran grew pale at the sight of it, her once warm hand now clammy around Tilia’s hand. Someone put the torch back. The bells kept ringing and the bears kept dancing and torches kept burning and Farran bolted from the crowd.

Tilia found her on the banks of the Noyne, where she stared transfixed at the water rushing past. “I tried,” she whispered, knees pulled to her chest, rocking back and forth. “I tried. I tried. I tried.”

It took her two nights to talk about King’s Landing. Tilia didn’t learn _why_ Farran was there, only that she was--and that no matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to save anyone at all. How, in the end, she’d ridden out of one nightmare only to enter another. Outside the torn city walls, a sea of people waited, all covered in blood and ashes and burns and blisters. Some wandered around in shock or sat completely still and stared into nothing. Others were crying, coughing, screaming. Running around in panic, in search of help, in search of loved ones, shouting their names, shouting at the gods as they cradled the dying in their singed arms.

She looked so small that night, Farran. Frail and shivering, so lost in thought her lips seemed to speak of their own.

She has the same look now--she and Lord Jon both. Arrested by unforgettable horrors.

“Perhaps we should call it a night,” the Queen says, softly.

Lord Jon pulls himself out of his thoughts with a big intake of breath. “Aye.” He looks at Farran, eyebrows tugged up in worry. “Unless you need to talk.”

Farran shakes her head.

“But if you ever do--”

“I know.”

* * *

Arya Stark’s chamber smells of pine soap and lavender, the air in there fresh and cool as if the Queen ordered it to be scrubbed clean and aired out earlier that day in hopes of her sister staying. Just as she had Arya Stark’s favorite meals prepared. Just as she had, almost as if by some magic, a bath, towels, nightdresses, and robes waiting for them in the washroom two doors down from Arya Stark’s chamber when they came upstairs.

It’s huge, the chamber. The bed too. A family could fit in it, easily. Tilia drops to her knees and peers beneath it. Nothing. Not even dust. She opens the wardrobe. Nothing but clothes. Clothes and clothes and clothes.

“Is all this yours?” She runs her fingers over the different doublets and tunics and shirts and jerkins. “I didn’t think you cared much about clothes.”

“I don’t. Sansa made them.”

“ _Made_ them.” Tilia turns to look over her shoulder. “But she’s a queen. She sewed all this? Don’t she have a seamstress, then?”

“This is what she’s like. She sews and knits and embroiders. She even mends your clothes. It’s how she shows you she cares.”

“She must love you a lot.” Tilia opens the chest at the foot of the bed. Her eyes widen. “A _lot_.”

“You don’t have to do that here.”

Tilia closes the lid. “I know.”

A table stands beneath the window. She climbs up on it, opens the shutters, and peers outside. There’s a ledge there that leads out on the roof. She sticks her head out and listens before climbing out, one hand holding up the skirt of the nightdress. The ledge runs all the way to a turret. From there one can reach the walls. It’s dark enough that she has to walk along the ledge for a bit to see better, to commit to memory the steps and ladders the guards use to get up and down the walls.

Once she returns to Arya Stark’s chamber, Tilia knows at least three ways of getting out of Winterfell if needed.

“You should check the drawers of the dresser too.” Farran lies in bed with her arms crossed behind her head. “A very small assassin could be hiding in them.”

“Shut up.” (She still checks the drawers.) “I know in my head that I’m safe, yeah, but my body don’t listen.”

Farran springs up from the bed, grabs a chair, and lodges it beneath the door handle. “There. All good.” She links her arms around Tilia’s neck. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t fit in here. At least not at that table. I should be out in the courtyard hauling buckets. Or in the kitchen scrubbing pans or something.”

“If you want to leave, just say the word.”

“I ain’t going nowhere until I’ve slept in a castle bed.”

Farran laughs against her lips, kisses her sweetly. “Let’s go to bed, then.”

There’s nothing quite as fine as lying down naked and clean between equally clean sheets. A rare luxury. Tilia stretches out like a content cat. She’s barely relaxed again before Farran has snuggled up close, her face buried in the crook of her neck.

“ _You_ all right?” Tilia asks, running her fingers through her wife's long, damp tresses.

“Can’t stop thinking about that whore.”

“Whoever did that to her, he’s probably long gone.”

“Could be one of the bards.”

“Could be.” Tilia reaches a snag and carefully detangles it. “Are we investigating?”

Farran’s chest moves against her with a sigh. “She won’t talk to the Queen’s sister. If word got out, she’d not have it easy. And enough people have seen us together now so you can’t do it either. I’d have to use one of the faces.”

Tilia says nothing, her fingers still moving slowly through Farran’s hair.

Months have passed since Farran last used one. She was a little girl, then. Twelve or so with stringy blond hair and too large eyes in a gaunt face and ten fingers with nails bitten down to the quick.

For a long while, Farran says nothing either. The days’ events, calm as they have been, have still drained Tilia of energy. She fights the pull of sleep, keeps herself awake by constantly moving her fingers as she waits for the decision.

Then, finally, Farran murmurs, “I won’t,” and Tilia can give into sleep and drift off in a bed made of clouds. 

* * *

The Starks break their fast in a chamber with a large wooden table, arched windows, and a tapestry depicting wolves running in snow on one wall and a sword with a wolf’s head pommel mounted on the opposite wall. There are wolves everywhere here. On tapestries, on banners, on linen, on clothes, on cups, in the godswood. Beneath the breakfast table. 

Iselinde likes dropping goodies on the floor the doglike wolf gobbles up. When it noses around the other chairs in hopes for more, Tilia tenses up. Listens to the click-clack of wolf claws against flagstones coming closer.

She keeps an eye on it during breakfast. She keeps an eye on it when they follow Lord Jon and Iselinde to his stables while the Queen attends meetings at Winterfell. She keeps an eye on it as they sit down at noon with a boy called Oskar to eat bread and ham and cheese. She keeps an eye on it when they once more sup in the godswood beneath the twinkling stars and hear the tale of Wulfe the Hunter to the sleep-soft breathing of the princess.

It’s not the only wolf Tilia keeps an eye on, though. While the rest of the pack thankfully stays away, the Starks are wolves too. Farran might claim she no longer knows how to be part of their pack, but the three Starks soon fall into an old dynamic like wagon wheels fall into old tracks. Sometimes the wagon rattles, sure, and sometimes a stone knocks it off track, but they push it back in together and keep moving forward slowly but surely by joking and teasing and reminiscing.

She even tells them anecdotes about their travels now, Farran does. Anecdotes about what they’ve seen and where they’ve been and never ever about what they’ve done, but anecdotes all the same. 

She doesn’t mention the whore again either. Her lost hand tingles less. Her knees don’t bounce as often. She doesn’t hone her blades with a single-minded focus while whispering to herself the names of monsters no longer with them. She doesn’t spring into action but _stay_ \--and this stay becomes something entirely new to them: they ride across the fields and through the wolfswood just to feel the wind in their hair and the sun on their faces; they sleep in after taking midnight dips in the hot pools, and break their fast in bed; they take the Minnow out on the mere and watch the waterbirds guiding their young; they join the Queen and Lord Jon and listen to (and help in choosing) the musicians who will play at the wedding feast; they climb out of Arya Stark’s bedchamber window and explore the roof just for the fun of it (and find an old, faded, and broken kite that must’ve lain up there for years).

They build a new kite, then, and take it out to the fields with Lord Jon and the Queen and the little princess and watch it soar. The princess toddles about beneath it, pointing and shouting words her parents seem to understand even if it mostly sounds like sweet little noises to Tilia. And when her father hoists her up on her shoulders and runs back and forth with one hand holding the kite and the other securing her to her perch, the princess laughs so infectiously all the adults laugh too. 

Tilia’s memories of her own family are faded into gray. She didn’t understand what Farran meant when she called Winterfell golden. But with every day that passes, days of eating and laughing and talking and even working, for Jon lets her and Farran help with the horses, she’s beginning to understand.

* * *

  
  


“So who’s coming to the wedding, anyway?”

Farran pops an olive into her mouth, lounging on cushions spread out on the ground beneath a chestnut tree not yet blooming. The princess yawns. Rubs at her eyes. Clambers up on her wolf’s back and falls asleep barely a heartbeat later. Her dark curls lie slick against her forehead, all damp with sweat. Her cheeks are flushed. They’ve played fetch again. Well, not Tilia. She sat on the cushions with the Queen and watched. One day she’ll throw the stick, she thinks. One day she’ll be brave. But for now her heart still beats so hard around the wolf she thinks it’ll smell the fear in her and attack. (Which is a ridiculous thought, really, looking at how Lamb lies there so content with a toddler on her back, but fear never listens to reason.)

“Everyone,” the Queen says, smiling tenderly at her daughter before her attention returns to her sister. “It’s the first time we’re all gathered since… Well, since the Dragon Pit, I suppose.” 

Farran turns another olive in her fingers. “Even your prince?”

“Yes. Even _King_ Drustan.”

“And how do you two get along?” Farran peers at her brother with a barely hidden smile while he meets her curiosity with some barely hidden amusement of his own.

“We get along.”

“Really.”

“Aye. Really. She picked me, didn’t she?” Lord Jon tilts his chin up, a lopsided smirk curving his lips. “She picked me as the father of her children and she picked me as her husband. She could’ve had him--she could’ve had _anyone_ \--and she picked me. If there’s anyone who needs to feel jealous or insecure, it sure as hell isn’t me.”

The Queen all but rolls her eyes at him.

“What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“It’s true, but you don’t have to be so smug about it.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m going to be smug about it for the rest of our lives.”

The Queen shoots him a fond look, laughing behind closed lips, and as he beams back at her, that besotted look is back on his face. It often is. And yet, despite their being so in love they glow with it, Tilia can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen them touch. At least when Farran’s around. 

One afternoon, when Farran was chatting with a maid who’s worked at Winterfell since the Starks were little, and Tilia gazed up at the castle to give them some privacy, she saw the Queen and Lord Jon through a window with the shutters left ajar. They were kissing and kissing and then suddenly the Queen dipped out of view and Lord Jon’s head tipped back and Tilia wondered out loud whether the horses couldn’t do with some exercise and pulled Farran with her, away from that corner of the courtyard where one could see not much, perhaps, but enough to know what happens in the Queen's office sometimes between meetings.

They hold back for Farran, Tilia knows. But they can’t hide the love and longing in their eyes--nor can they hide the worry and concern when they look at Farran in moments like this, where she’s grown quiet after a joke or teasing, and fidgets with her sleeve or tugs at the grass and doesn’t look anyone in the eye.

Lord Jon leans in a touch closer. “Are you worried about meeting everyone again?”

“Why would I be?”

“I was.”

Farran stops tugging at the grass. Folds her hand around her stump.

“After King’s Landing,” he murmurs, “I found it hard to be around people. Crowds, feasts, all that. Was a bit much. Was even worse when it was back here with everyone. Maybe you won’t find it difficult like I did, but if you do, Arya, if it brings up too many memories--”

“I go there sometimes,” she says, eyebrows arched and head held high, “to King’s Landing. I’m not afraid of those memories. Never was.”

“Why? Why would you go there?”

Farran shrugs. “Nature has taken over. A heart-tree grows in the godswood. There’s grass, now. Flowers. Wildlife. It looks completely different. Maybe you should go there too. Maybe it would help you to see it like that. Full of life.”

“Maybe.” Lord Jon watches his napping daughter thoughtfully. “Maybe I should take my children there. Once they’re older. Show them. They have to know their history.”

“I agree,” the Queen says. “One day we should.”

Lord Jon nods, humming, and turns his eyes back to his sister. “Has it helped you? Going there.”

When Farran looks out over the mere as if to gather her thoughts or strengthen her composure, the Queen catches Tilia’s eye and nods discreetly in the direction of Winterfell.

It’s a daunting thought, spending time alone with the Queen. It would be Tilia’s first time and she has no idea what to do or what to say, but it’s also the first time Lord Jon has asked Farran something so directly--and the first time too that she hasn’t changed the subject whenever they’ve veered close to something difficult. She needs this. Needs to talk to the only other person in the world who’ll truly understand.

Tilia looks back at the Queen and accepts her silent suggestion with a nod.

* * *

The sun is at their back. The Queen’s shadow seems twice as long as Tilia’s. Sometimes, as they walk, the shadows don’t care that one's a wharf rat and the other's a queen and meld together and form one big lopsided shape. Not that the Queen is of the haughty kind. Not once has she made Tilia feel unwelcome for being lowborn. Not once has she made Tilia feel insignificant or worthless. She’s a bit private, sure, and she respects the boundaries Farran has drawn, but that’s all. Even now, when she could take the opportunity to pressure Tilia into telling her all the things Farran won’t, she sticks to polite small talk about Lord Jon’s stud farm and how she, who never was that fond of horses, has grown to love Shadow for her calm and steady temperament, and that Jon has promised her Shadow's first foal.

"He tells me _you're_ very good with horses, though. Even the mercurial ones."

Tilia can't help but beam at that. "That's kind of him, Your Grace."

"Have you always been good with horses?"

"No, Your Grace. Arya taught me how to ride a few years ago. Ain't any horses in Braavos."

"No, of course." The Queen looks at her kindly. "You don't have to call me that, you know. Not when we're alone. You can just call me Sansa."

Tilia throws a glance over her shoulder. Many paces away, far away enough that they can’t hear them but not so far they can’t protect if needed, walk guards. Sometimes she wonders whether they even notice it, the Starks, how they're never truly alone at all.

“I prefer it, Your Grace. If you don’t mind.”

“I understand,” the Queen says with a gracious smile. “We don’t know each other very well. I hope that will change, though. Over time. I know you and Arya are used to more exciting places. Compared to the Free Cities, the North hasn’t much to offer except… nature, I suppose. But I hope… I hope you and Arya know you’ll always be welcome here if you'd like to visit. And there _are_ things to do and see in the North. Arya could take you to see the Wall. You could visit Tormund, the king of the Free Folk, and Deep Lake. The lake there is breathtaking. And White Harbor is very exciting. Perhaps not as exciting as Braavos, but…”

“Have you ever been, Your Grace? To Braavos.”

“Once. I visited the Iron Bank. It’s a beautiful city.”

“It’s a gray city,” Tilia says. “No trees or flowers or any of it. No unless you’re very rich--and the very rich have very high walls, don’t they.”

“Yes,” the Queen says, head bowed with a small smile. "I suppose that's true."

Tilia bites her lip, regarding the Queen discreetly. Farran might be secretive about their life together, but the life Tilia led before they met is her own to share however she likes. _Should_ she share it, though?

There's no hiding that she's lowborn, but that doesn't mean she has to remind the Queen of it every chance she's got. The Queen might not be haughty--or even that fancy compared to rich Braavosi men and women--but she _is_ still a queen. That makes Farran a princess--and princesses are supposed to marry highborn men and give birth to lots of little lords and ladies. And throughout her life, Tilia's heard plenty of stories about highborn falling for lowborn and what happens then. The Queen would never harm her or even offer her gold to disappear, though--Tilia's seen enough of her character to know that--but reason does little to calm the nerves. She's been wrong about people before. Not often, no, but sometimes once is enough.

The Queen _wants_ to get to know her in all her wharf rat glory, though, and has tried to bond by sharing of herself...

“I used to sleep on the rooftops,” Tilia rushes out before her fears can get the better of her. She chances a glance at the Queen--and breathes out her relief when she finds her looking at her with genuine interest. “It’s safer that way, you see. The streets, the wharf, the alleys. They're not places where you grow old. So I'd climb up on the rooftops and find myself a nook somewhere. Sleep in the shadow of a chimney, all safe and warm. Soon I learned how to get around the city and all without using the streets or the canals much. Learned where to sit to see the gardens too. All those colors in a world of gray... I loved that even better than the sunset. Maybe nature doesn’t seem much to someone who has it but...” Tilia shrugs and holds out her hands to indicate the spring-green fields around them. “This is exciting to me. How could a noisy gray city compare to all this? Honest, Your Grace, I think the North might be the most beautiful place I've ever been.”

A smile blooms on the Queen’s face, then, so proud and delighted she shines. Tilia even imagines she can see tears glittering in her lashes.

"There's so many pretty flowers too," Tilia says just to see her smile some more. "And most of them, I've never seen before. Not ever. Everywhere I go, there's something new to discover."

"Has Arya shown you the glass gardens?” the Queen asks and Tilia shakes her head. “May I show you? I think you would love it.”

Tilia beams. “I’d like it very much, Your Grace.”

* * *

* * *

The glass gardens were destroyed during the Long Night; now, they shine like perfect diamonds in the sun. Through the Myrish glass, between branches of fruit trees and grape vines, Arya sees glimpses of red hair and a dark blue dress, and her heart stutters.

She _can_ walk easily through King’s Landing. That was not a lie. And it has helped, seeing how someone intent on destruction failed in the end for now life grows from the ruins and the ashes of a city razed twice by dragonfire. It might not be the real reason as to why Arya always returns there, no matter where she's been-- and she might not have shared that truth with Jon, either--but she truly does believe he'd benefit from seeing it too.

Walking through Winterfell, however... If visiting the green garden of King's Landing helps in dulling the pain by distancing her from unwanted old memories, visiting Winterfell erases that distance by blurring the line between now and then.

Sometimes Arya forgets. Just for a moment. She walks through a Winterfell all too familiar and sees Mother’s hair in the corner of her eye or catches Father’s laughter through an open window or hears Rickon cooing as he plays--and for half a heartbeat Arya forgets that the family living in Winterfell isn’t _her_ family. In the mornings, after dreams of her childhood's Winterfell so vivid she _knows_ she’s little again--she knows it in her bones--waking up is so suffocating all she wants is to fall back asleep and pretend that the dreams are reality and that the life that formed after her father’s death is nothing but a nightmare.

It’s Tilia that brings her back, then. Her embrace, her lips, her love. For her, Arya can brave any nightmare, and she opens the door to the glass gardens and steps into the scents of the past.

It smells warm and earthy in there. It smells like nicking strawberries and biting into the sun-warm fruit, the juices sweet like sugar on her tongue. It smells like pulling up carrots and washing them with water from the watering can before taking a bite, dirt remnants gritty between her teeth. It smells like picking apples not yet ripe and climbing up on the roof and eating the tart fruit and laughing about how gassy they’ll get--and joking with Jon about farting at Sansa and waving the stench in her direction just to hear her squeal and see her pinch her nose, disgusted.

Arya's heart doesn’t stutter at those memories but clench as if wrung by a ruthless fist.

Hidden behind a budding apple tree, she watches her wife for a spell to ground herself in the present. To see the beauty of the garden through her eyes rather than getting lost in the echoes of long-gone days and stolen innocence. She loves gardens, her Tia, has always dreamed of one. She used to climb up on the rooftops of Braavos so she could admire the greenery hidden behind the walls of the affluent. 

When Tilia and Sansa left together, Arya worried some. They’ve never been alone together before, but the walk here must’ve gone rather well for now Tilia even shares with Sansa the story about how she once stole soil from one of the richest men in Braavos. Two buckets, full of soil, and her pockets full of seeds.

“I got bit,” she says. “By one of his dogs. Would’ve gotten my foot hadn’t I worn leather boots. Lost the boots, though, but kept my feet--and the buckets too. And the seeds."

Sansa laughs at that. “Did you grow anything?”

“Potatoes in one and onions in the other. I kept them up on the roof where I slept. Moved the buckets around so they always had sun. Watered them with rainwater and piss. It’s good, see. Piss. Makes them grow. And I planted the seeds too. Poured some of the soil into an old wicker basket and just pushed them all in there to see what would happen. They sprouted and grew. I tended to the plants like little children. Found it soothing.” Tilia brushes her finger-tips over a blossoming redcurrant bush. “It _is_ soothing. Don’t Your Grace reckon? If I was queen, I’d be in here all the time. Clearing my head after all those meetings and petitions and all.”

“I wouldn't know. I do take walks in here sometimes to unwind, but I don't do any gardening. I sew. Jon likes to polish Longclaw or sketch in his notebook, but I sew or knit. I even enjoy darning socks. Give me a needle and I calm instantly.”

“Yeah, Arya said something about that. You’ve sewn all her clothes, yeah?”

“Most of them.” Sansa pauses, watching Tilia for a moment. Then she walks a step closer. “Tilia,” she says, “I was wondering--I have been wondering, really--whether you would allow me to sew you a dress. Or a tunic or doublet, if you would prefer it. I know not every woman likes a dress. My friend Meera dresses like Arya and my other friend Brienne does wear dresses at feasts, but they’re hardly feminine. And the _wildling_ women…” Sansa lets out a breath, lets her shoulders drop. “What I’m trying to say is that it would be your choice. What kind of garment. I can make almost anything. I’m just really happy that Arya has someone, because I know what it was like for Jon and he was all alone and…” 

Sansa blinks and blinks and swallows. Licks her lips. Releases a shaky breath. 

“I’m sorry. It’s the pregnancy. I’m not trying to manipulate you with my stupid tears.” She laughs at herself, wiping at her eyes. “Come. Let me show you something.”

Arya sneaks after them as Sansa leads Tilia to a corner of the garden where a beam of light illuminates a pale flower dotted with red. It’s unlike anything Arya has ever seen--and at the same time incredibly familiar.

“It looks like Lord Jon’s wolf, the pale one,” Tilia says. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a hwydulvar wyrt. A white wolf orchid. It’s sacred--and magical.”

“Magical?”

“Has Arya told you about our brother? Our little brother Bran.”

“The Three-Eyed Raven. He lives in a secret valley in the mountains.”

“Yes. Jon lived there for a while. He struggled a lot after King’s Landing. In ways I’m sure must be familiar to you. But that valley is a special place. Safe and sheltered. It helped him heal. It helped him a great deal.”

Tilia nods. “I understand, Your Grace.”

“It took him a long time to be ready to be with me. Truly be with me. But once he was, he rode back to the valley to say goodbye to them so he could close that chapter of his life and start this one. And he returned with this flower. The Children’s magic kept it alive and now it’ll grow in our garden forever. It was Jon’s gift to me. His promise.” Sansa looks back at the orchid, stroking her bump. “Things changed after that. He shared his pain with me and I think that helped him too. Helped him heal. I don’t know all the horrors Arya must’ve gone through, but you do, don’t you? She’s shared her pain with you. I know how much that helps and I’m very happy she has you. A wife.” Sansa sniffles, smiling at Tilia through her tears. “You’ve promised each other forever. That means you’re one of us now. A Stark. And I’d like to welcome you into the family and that’s how I would do it. I would sew something. It’s what I do.”

A tear runs Sansa’s cheek. She looks away with a breathy laugh, fingers swiping over her cheeks. She looks more a girl than a powerful queen--and even if it’s not meant to manipulate, the effect on Tilia is visible. She’s looking up at Sansa the way Arya knows she looked at Sansa when she was little and all she wanted in the world was for Sansa to accept her. Choose her.

“I like a pretty dress,” Tilia says.

“You do?”

“It’s not always practical, the way we live and all. But I like a pretty dress.”

“Really?” Sansa lights up with a wide smile. “We can pick out fabrics tonight! Or tomorrow. If that suits you better. I have _so_ much fabric. From Essos too. What colors do you like? Red, perhaps. I think red’s your color--”

“Green,” Arya says, leaving the shadows that hid her. “Green’s her color. Like emeralds."

Sansa raises an eyebrow. “Has no one ever told you it’s incredibly rude to spy on people?”

“I usually don’t let people know I’ve spied on them.” Arya fires off an innocent smile before walking closer to peer at the orchid. “It does look like Ghost.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Didn’t know the glass gardens were repaired.”

“Our first winter was rough. I went to Braavos as soon as I could and asked for a loan. Myrish glass is very expensive, but if we had another winter like that… It was a priority.”

“Are you growing strawberries.”

Sansa narrows her eyes. “Are you going to steal them as usual?”

“We never stole them. Septa Mordane chased us off. Said she'd pull Jon's ear clean off if he ever put me up to something like that again."

"Did you two talk?" 

"Yeah," Arya says. "It was... Nice isn't really the word for it, is it."

"Helpful?"

"Yeah. For him more than me, I think."

Sansa looks unconvinced, but before she's had a chance to comment, Arya draws her attention back to the orchid.

"He spoils you," she says. "A magical flower, the bracelet, the pavilion, the Minnow, even children. Is there anything he wouldn't give you?"

"Does it bother you?"

Arya shakes her head. "After everything that's happened, I think you deserve it. Being spoiled. Being happy." She meet Tia's eyes, then, and smiles softly at her beautiful wife who reminds her, every day, that there's more to life than monsters. "I know I'm bad at showing it, but I'm happy for you." She looks back at Sansa. "I am."

"Does this mean you'll stay for the wedding?"

"Said I would, didn't I?"

“In all honesty, Arya, every morning I'm surprised to see that you're still here. As wonderful as this week has been, it always feels as if you have one foot out the door.”

Arya shrugs. “It’s a difficult thing to get used to, you and Jon. I won’t lie about that. But I will stay for the wedding. And not out of guilt. Not because you’re pregnant and crying all the time. But because I love you and I love Jon and I'd regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't stay for your wedding."

With a watery smile, Sansa throws her arms around her and envelops her in a rosewater-scented hug Arya has no problem returning. She does want to stay. As difficult as it all is, she does. She's never admitted it out loud, but sometimes when she thinks about her own wedding, about how no other Stark was there but herself, there's an ache in her chest she wouldn't wish on her brother and sister. No matter how strange their union. She just needs to do a better job ignoring the bitter in this bittersweet Winterfell. She just needs a better job suppressing the pain.

* * *

* * *

Farran sleeps on her side, her hand tucked under the pillow, her hair draped over it in messy waves. Tonight they heard the tale about Sindra in her spire and the farmer who loved her enough to wait. As far as stories go, it wasn’t the most riveting tale Tilia has ever heard and Farran rolled her eyes at her family and how the tale so obviously was a sweeter version of their own story. A version they could tell their daughter without letting her know of a time when they didn’t get along.

Farran mentions it sometimes, how Lord Jon and Queen Sansa once bickered and argued and glowered. How they once, even further back, barely interacted at all when they’re so together now, so together and calm and settled despite all the hardships they've suffered, it's as if the gods molded them to fit one another perfectly. They're being anything but in love with each other is a difficult thing to picture.

Tilia strokes Farran’s hair from her cheek, caresses her jawline tenderly.

Give me a needle and I calm, the Queen said. But it’s how Farran has calmed too. That’s how she’s quieted the memories haunting her--only her sewing is of a terrible kind. Terrible and necessary, Farran says, but sometimes Tilia wonders for how long necessity can hide corruption. For it does corrupt. It taints them. Pulls them into darkness little by little. It’s becoming more clear to her than ever here at this golden Winterfell.

But maybe, if they stay, if they settle down, they can have what the Queen and Lord Jon have. They can mount Needle on the wall the way Jon has mounted Longclaw and have their starlit suppers and stories before going to bed in the cabin they’ve built. They can have a little garden and a chicken coop and a cat that takes care of the mice, like Tilia has always dreamed of and believed she could never have. 

They can have their happy ending too.

* * *

* * *

Arya runs in the godswood. Leaps over stumps and stones. Climbs trees and the crumbling stairs in the broken tower and then she falls through the window, trips over roots and her own feet and the hem of her stupid dress. She skins her knees and elbows and Mother is there to scoop her up in her arms. To comfort. She’s warm and smells not of lavender but of rosewater and her hair is too light and her eyes are too pale and she calls Arya _sproutling_ and when Father comes, she drops Arya like a stone and kisses him as if her life depended on it and he’s not Father at all, too short, too dark, so familiar and yet so wrong, just like Mother, just like Winterfell, just like Jon and Sansa and Arya herself and she opens her eyes with a gasp.

The chamber is dark and quiet, the only sounds Tilia’s soft snoring and her own short, sharp, shallow breaths.

She likes it here, Tilia. Tonight, before they went to bed, she didn’t even check the room for hidden monsters.

_I like it here too. I do._

Her missing hand tingles. She wants to stretch out her fingers, wants to wrap them around something, wrap them around the hilt of her dagger. She wants to stretch her legs too and run run run.

_It’s good to be home._

Tormund and Sam and their families arrived two days ago. It only made the dreams worse and drained the sweetness out of the bittersweet days. With all these children, too many to count, with the wolves running all around them, wolves so happy to see Sam’s boys, everything is so familiar and yet so wrong Arya wants to scream.

She's the one who doesn't fit in now. Tilia fits in even better than she does for she was never here, before. She plays with the children and teaches them how to climb trees and get down too without hurting themselves. She listens to Jon's stories and laughs at Tormund's bawdy jokes and blossoms like the flowers she loves so much while Arya struggles to find her place without relying on being No One wearing Arya Stark's face.

Now, she swings her legs over the edge of the bed. The flagstones are warm against her bare feet. She bounces her knee. Bites at her thumbnail.

She can’t stop thinking about the whore. She can’t stop thinking about Kari’s scars, Sansa’s scars, Tilia’s scars, her own damn scars.

He could still be out there, hurting other girls while Arya wastes her time.

The faces she rarely wears anymore call to her. It would be so easy to slip one on and sneak out of the castle and learn. It would be so easy to go to the Smoking Log and order and ale and listen. 

The faces are poison, she knows, but she’d only wear it for an hour or two. Maybe three. That’s hardly anything.

It’s good to be home. It is. But everywhere in the world monsters hurt the innocent. Even in the North. Even in the shadow of the great keep of Winterfell with its benevolent queen.

Safe places don’t exist.

* * *

Somewhere out in the night, a wolf pack howls. A stranger hidden in the shadows between two squat Wintertown houses lifts her head and listens. Smiles. They're on the hunt, she thinks, and so is she.


	35. The Wolves of Winterfell Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoever said that this chapter would be the last before the epilogue and that she would write for however long it took, even if it turned out to be like 12k, she was a stinking liar and is not to be trusted and also not me no sir. Because I know I don’t have that kind of stamina and would never say such a thing AHEM. It's easier to post shorter chapters more often. So... Here’s _not_ the final chapter before the epilogue because that’s next one. Oh, and there's a murder, but not described in great detail and he was a terrible shit anyway so... Enjoy!

Tilia sits in a wedge of moonlight falling across the bed. Arms crossed over her chest. Mouth a thin line. Eyes following Arya as she moves from the window to the table to the floor. But when Arya starts disrobing to wash up before returning to bed, Tilia looks away--and that’s how Arya knows her wife is really angry.

Arya dabs her face dry, picks up the nightdress from where she left it draped over a chair, and slips it on as she pads to bed. When she lifts the coverlet and joins Tilia, Tia pulls her knees up to her chest and scoots as far away as she can without perching herself on the nightstand. With the window behind her, her face is left in darkness while Arya bathes in moonlight. But she needs no light to know her wife’s emotions. Nor does she need darkness to mask her own and keep her calm.

“You’re angry with me.”

Tilia takes a deep breath. Releases it through her nose. “If you want to wear the faces, that’s your choice. But don’t lie to me.”

“I’ve not lied.”

“You told me you wouldn’t.”

“I meant it at the time.”

“Then you should’ve woken me. Not let me sleep in here all alone in a strange place.”

“I thought you liked it here. You certainly seem to like Jon and Sansa.”

“They’re nice to me.”

“Of course they are. They want me to stay.”

After a lifetime of swallowing her retorts and keeping her head down to go unnoticed, Tilia sometimes finds it harder to bite back than biting her tongue. Even when she’s safe. Even when she’s itching to bite. Arya knows it. She knows it well enough that she should bear guilt and shame over what she said and wish for darkness after all. But she remains cool and calm in the gray light of the moon.

When Tilia finally speaks, it’s with a softness Arya knows she doesn’t deserve.

“I know I’m not a fancy Faceless Man and all, but I can still tell when someone’s trying to manipulate me. Your family’s nice to me cos they’re nice. The only person trying to manipulate me right now is you. You’re trying to pick a fight so I’ll forget that you just snuck out in the middle of the night wearing someone else’s face. But I’m not letting you.”

“It’s not a big deal, Tia. It’s just some skin. It’s useful. And I don’t wear them for long. Not anymore.” She reaches for her wife’s hand. “Can we just--”

Tilia shoots out of bed, breaking the wedge of moonlight. A silver halo shines around her head, her hair a dark river flowing down her body.

“You don’t even notice, do you?” she whispers, trembling. “You’re still wearing it.”

Arya looks down at her hands, at her ten fingers.

With a sigh, she leaves the bed and removes the face. It’s an odd thing, this transformation that never truly is. Her bones don’t shift or grow. Her skin doesn’t stretch. There’s no pain. No physical feeling. Only clothes fitting differently when she shifts from one shape to another. Only emotions getting muted or seeping back in, as they do now when guilt and shame fill her gut, her cheeks, with a prickling heat. Now she wishes for darkness to hide her face, but she lifts her gaze instead to meet the pain in Tilia’s eyes that she put there. To bear the guilt and the shame. To own it.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry, Tia.”

“We said once that if we’re doing this, we’re doing it together.”

“I know. I won’t do this again. You and me.”

Tilia hugs her body, one hand rubbing her upper arm. “You gotta be careful.”

“I know.” Arya folds the face back into the satchel and puts it back in the chest by the bed. “It was only for a few hours. I’m still me.”

Tilia draws a breath to speak, but the words halt on her tongue. She exhales through her nose instead of voicing her thoughts, the tension in her body falling away with that breath, and pads back to the bed. 

“Did you find him?” She sits, pulls the coverlet over her legs. “Kill him?”

“Found him, yeah. Couldn’t kill him, though. Not without hurting others. And then there’s the wedding… If I do anything to ruin it, I’m the one who’ll get killed. By Sansa.” Arya flashes a grin. “We can kill him the day after.”

“Has he hurt anyone else?”

“She wouldn’t talk, the girl. Not really. Just said it was a little bloodplay that got out of hand. That he’s behaved himself since. Not bought another girl, even though he comes for ale all the time. She said it as if he felt remorseful or something, but it’s horseshit. She was scared. And he was there tonight too. Playing cards. Drinking ale. He didn’t look remorseful.”

He looked like a man biding his time. Preparing for another strike. Lying low until then.

Arya has met his kind before. The ones who try a whore first--or just a street child. Someone no one will miss in case he gets a bit too eager with the violence. Someone whose life is either only a monetary loss or not a loss at all. A body dumped in the river. A body paid for with a few gold coins. A body used, abused, and discarded to see whether he can do it, the things he dreams of when he tugs at his meat at night. The things he dreams of doing to someone else. A wife, a sister, a pretty neighbor, the girl in the shop across the street, the beauty who rejected his proposal...

And Wintertown’s a good place to do it too. With the port built at Eastwatch and all those mines opened in the true North, there are always people on the Kingsroad now. Seeking jobs and opportunities. And with the wedding too… So many strangers to vanish among.

He’s been here so long, though. A little over a month. 

Not that it matters. Whatever he’s planning, he won’t get the chance. Arya will strike first.

* * *

Sansa’s chamber is an undulating sea of women. They fuss and dress and braid and scoop up a child before they climb somewhere they shouldn’t. And through it all they talk and laugh and _sound_. They’re all pregnant. Well, not the handmaidens or Arya or Tilia, but the ladies. Meera, Brienne, Gilly. All three of them--and all roughly as far along as Sansa. What luck. What joy. Pleased as children with a platter full of treats. An hour, they’ve been in here, dressing up the bride and one another and weaving flower crowns, and it’s all they talk about.

Usually, Arya wouldn’t have stayed for even a quarter of that hour. There’s scarcely room to breathe. But then she thinks about Sansa’s first wedding, how she was scared and alone and dressed by strangers who meant her no well, how she must’ve swallowed down her tears and walked into the sept steeped in the dignity and strength of someone half Tully-half Stark. Someone who had no choice but to be strong and brave like their mother and father and Robb. She thinks about Sansa’s second wedding when she was lonelier still and even more afraid. When the only familiar face was that of a man who had betrayed their family, who she believed at the time had murdered her brothers.

She thinks about Sansa spending five years alone in a Winterfell that housed too many painful memories and not enough joy--nor any loved ones with whom to share that burden. Not one. 

So now, when Arya watches her sister glowing in this room full of women who love her and whom she loves in return--women dressed up in their finery and chatting about women things on what will be the happiest day of Sansa's life--Arya finds the little air left in the chamber and breathes after all. Laughs when she’s supposed to. Smiles when she’s supposed to. _Stays_. 

They’re talking about Tormund now. His wish for Sansa and Jon to name the baby after him. Well, it’s mostly Brienne talking. Ranting, rather. Rolling her eyes, she lists all the suggestions Tormund had in case it would be a girl. Suggestions he must’ve spent a long time thinking up. Tormundina, Tormunda, Tormundella, Tormundis, Tormundette...

“Your Grace, please tell me you won’t be that cruel to the poor child. You can just as well call her Torment."

Laughing, Sansa steps into the dress held up by Kari and Ella. “We won’t. We’ve already decided: we won’t name our children after people we know or after people we’ve lost. Only new names.”

“No little Catelyn, then?” Brienne says, sounding almost hopeful. “Are Your Grace certain? A little Catelyn Stark.”

“Don’t listen to her, Sansa,” Gilly says. “We named our daughter Melessa Shireen. To honor Sam’s mother. But every time I--” She chokes up. Fans eyes filled with pregnant lady tears. “I was so emotional after the birth. Couldn’t say Melessa without crying--and I didn’t want to cry every time I said my daughter’s name so I just started calling her Shireen instead. The loss was too recent. I _loved_ Sam’s mother. She was a good woman. She treated me like a daughter, right from the start. Didn't care I was lowborn or a wildling or any of it."

Sansa brushes a hand over Gilly’s shoulder, smiling kindly. “Shireen is a beautiful name--and you're still honoring Melessa's memory. It's a good compromise. Jon and I should do the same. If it’s a boy, Tormund can be his middle name. That should please him.”

“May I, then?” Brienne looks at Sansa, a hand to her still rather flat stomach. “If it’s a girl. Catelyn Tarth. If it please Your Grace."

That’s enough for Sansa to choke up too, which makes Brienne tear up as well and then Gilly's at it again, and Arya sinks down on the floor and pretends to be interested in Meera’s boy lest she rolls her eyes. Wylis is about two years old and curious enough to not be shy like the princess. While Iselinde plays with a ribbon-adorned Lamb on the bed, he sat down in Tilia's lap uninvited the moment he saw the pretty flowers embroidered on her dress, pointing at them and demanding their names.

It did end up green, the dress. A beautiful thing with balloon sleeves and embroidered with Tilia’s favorite flowers (poppies, jasmine, and marigold). The way she shone when she returned to their chamber after the fitting made Arya smile for the rest of the evening. Tilia does like Jon and Sansa--and they like her. And Arya appreciates that, she does, but sometimes when she's feeling sorry for herself, when she feels like a left foot squeezed into a right shoe, she thinks they like Tilia better than they like Arya (even if they love Arya more). 

“Arya?”

Sansa’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts. She’s dressed now, wearing a flower crown of jonquils and white daffodils, and a wedding gown the pale blue of winter roses that falls in swaths and swaths of tulle from the dark blue band beneath her bust. Apparently, she wanted to wear a different dress--brilliant blue with the colorful kind of floral embroidery she decorated Tilia’s dress with--but it didn’t fit her and her growing belly anymore. “Still blue, though,” she said, softly, when she showed it to her friends. “Jon loves me in blue.” Then she shared a blushing smile with Meera she, perhaps, should’ve shared with her actual sister had things been different. But things are the way they are and Arya can't fault her for it; she knows she would've pulled a face rather than smiled back. But it's still a rejection and it still stings. Just a little.

“Will you carry Iselinde?” Sansa asks her now. “So I don't wrinkle my dress. And during the ceremony too.”

She might look just like Jon, the little Iselinde, but today she's a miniature version of her mother in a dark blue tulle dress with pale blue ribbons and a flower crown of her own. They're such a sweet sight Arya’s teeth ache.

It's such a sweet request it soothes the stinging.

No one ever minds the princess but her parents and Kari (and on a few occasions Wolkan and Kari’s sister). But she is Arya’s niece, no one else’s. Not Brienne's and not Gilly's and certainly not Meera's. She's Arya's family and Arya can't help but feel a bit smug when she perches the child on her hip as if she's sat there a hundred times before when it's the first. Iselinde isn't convinced, though, and squints up at her beneath the flower crown.

Before the child starts wailing for more familiar arms, Arya gives her a friendly smile. "You're very pretty today, sweet girl. In your pretty crown."

With the most innocent expression that has ever graced a child's face, Iselinde grabs the crown and throws it on the floor. 

“If you pick that up and put it back on her head,” Sansa says, “she’ll think it’s a game.”

Arya doesn’t care. If her niece wants to play, then play they shall--and play they do. Each time she has to put the crown back on Iselinde's head, she makes a great show of what a _pain_ it is--and Iselinde giggles as if it's the funniest thing she's ever seen. By the time they reach the godswood, the poor crown is a bruised thing, but both aunt and niece are grinning from ear-to-ear, and Arya thinks she could've happily played that game a hundred times more. Sansa catches her eye, then, smiling too--a mother's smile, all warm and tender--and there's an odd feeling in Arya's chest. Something swelling and swelling she has to temper before it bursts. Thankfully, the sight of the godswood distracts them all.

The servants must've worked for hours, woven flower garland after flower garland and strung them between spring-green branches like fragrant necklaces. Poles bound with silk-ribbons and holding bouquets line the path to the heart-tree. And the path itself is strewn with pale petals of pink and yellow and creamy white. They're attracting bees and butterflies, all those flowers, and as they buzz and flutter all around them, it feels like something out of a song. As if they know they'll witness the first royal wedding the North has seen in centuries and can't help but attend. One butterfly, a small orange-tipped thing, even flutters around Iselinde before deciding to taste one of the jonquils comprising her crown.

Arya opens her mouth to joke about how it’s her Uncle Bran come to visit when a raven swoops down from the sky and settles down on her shoulder, pecking fondly at her braid when she greets him. A surprised noise escapes Tilia, but she finds herself quickly and greets the Three-Eyed Raven too with a bow of her head.

At the soft plucking of a harp filling the air, Sansa takes Uncle Edmure's arm to be escorted to her groom waiting beneath the heart-tree. Edmure is so proud to give away the Queen in the North, it's a damn miracle he doesn't bang his big beaming head against the canopy of branches. Arya presses her lips together to hide a grin, her gaze moving to Jon out of instinct. He sees nothing but his bride, though, his eyes wide and gleaming, his lips softly parted in a breathless smile. She's a beautiful bride, Sansa--and not for the dress or the flower crown or the sparkling bracelet on her wrist--but for her own smile. As soft, as breathless as his. A delicate thing, almost private, and yet so incandescent no one could ever doubt the love in her heart no matter how coldly she once treated him. A tear escapes Jon's eye. He doesn't even bother brushing it away. Around them, people already sniffle and pat their pockets for their handkerchiefs.

Arya won't cry, though. Not in front of others.

It’s not intentional. Not really. It just happens. The way she makes herself cold and hard when emotions stir around her. She doesn’t cry when Tormund and Davos clutch at one another, eyes leaking and mouths smiling. She doesn’t cry when Maester Wolkan has to gather himself before he officiates the union. She doesn't cry when she hears rustling in the shrubbery and notices a pack of wolves watching the ceremony, an echo of a pack long gone, so similar and yet so different, just like everything else. She doesn’t even cry when Jon struggles to hold it together as he croaks his way through his vows while his beautiful bride smiles down at him through her tears. 

It’s not even difficult. The more the people around her cry, the easier it becomes.

When it's time for the kiss, Arya takes a fortifying breath and forces herself to watch. As if sensing her mood, Bran-as-a-bird shows her a rare display of affection by rubbing his little head against her cheek. But it's Iselinde who truly saves her from watching her siblings lock lips. Noticing her mother and father being affectionate without her, Iselinde stretches out her little hands with a loud, "Mama! Baba!" Jon and Sansa pull apart. Davos jokes that the little princess is jealous and everyone laughs when she seemingly confirms it by toddling to her parents and looking ridiculously pleased at no longer being left out from the cuddles when they scoop her up.

Arya's the one who's left out, then. A shameful thought. Childish. She's no better than a toddler. It must've shown on her face too, for when Sansa notices her, she stretches out her arm and waves at Arya to join them too. (She's of half a mind to shake her head, but that would be even more childish.)

Jon said Bran will never leave the valley again, but with her little brother still on her shoulder, Arya joins the group hug and here they are. The last of House Stark--and the future of it too. A House eight thousand years old will live on despite their enemies' best efforts. All thanks to Jon and Sansa. And as strange a union as this is, it's at least one of love and happiness. After all the horrors their children have suffered, Arya decides that both Mother and Father would be happy. That they would be pleased. That, had they been here and seen it all with their own eyes, they would've stood arm in arm and smiled mistily, even proudly at their children gathered once more at the heart of Winterfell. Safe, together, at home.

  
  


* * *

The Great Hall is flower-adorned too. Greenery and petals as far as the eye can see. Course after course is carried inside. Arya keeps her mouth busy with food, grateful to be seated at the high table with her brother on one side and her wife on the other. Jon wasn’t wrong. It is difficult to be around everyone again. Gendry keeps catching her eye across the room. He must’ve arrived when Arya and the others were still in Sansa’s chamber and wasn't invited to witness the ceremony, as he doesn't belong to the bride and groom's inner circle. A pretty lady sits by his side. His wife, then. A cousin. Black of hair and blue of eye, like him. 

They’ve yet to talk, Arya and Gendry, but she can see the eagerness in those blue eyes. Davos is interested too, as are Uncle Edmure and even cousin Robin, even though she barely knows them. The moment the food is cleared, they’ll all want a piece of her, she knows. She hears the questions already--where have you been, what have you done, how long will you stay--and they weigh her down like furs meant to warm you but so heavy they end up suffocating you.

When Jon and Sansa cut the wedding pie together--a huge lemon cake inspired thing the royal baker has created himself and now admires from a corner, beaming--Arya uses the distraction to slip away after murmuring to her wife that she needs to use the privy.

They’ve eaten so much, listened to so many speeches about _finally_ and _thank the gods they got their heads out of their asses_ and _i almost dragged them to the heart-tree myself!_ and _may they have many fat children_ and all that stuff, that by now it’s darkening. 

Outside the walls of Winterfell, tables and benches are lined up for the smallfolk. There the people celebrate too, dining on meals composed and prepared by castle cooks. They sing along with the bards not chosen to play at the wedding feast, the noise of it all streaming in through the gates. Arya thinks about the man, then. The cutter. Perhaps it’s not strange he stayed for this after all. These people will talk about attending the royal wedding (or close to it) for the rest of their days. He’s among them. She’s sure of it. But she promised.

Turning her back to the din, she finds herself a quiet corner by the armory, and some throwing knives she lines up on a nearby barrel.

She’s four knives in when she hears approaching footfalls.

“Thought I’d find you here.”

Arya throws another knife. It hits its mark perfectly. She turns to Gendry with a nonchalant tilt of her head. “Good afternoon, my lord.” She curtsies. “How do you do?”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

“Have you looked in the mirror?” She nods at his fine clothes. Good boots of expensive leather. Well-fitted breeches. A doublet embroidered with the Baratheon sigil. He even wears a fat gold ring on one finger embossed with a stag’s head, its eyes glossy amber. “You’re a fancy lord, now. Married. A father. To a few bastards too, I hear.”

“A few.”

“Five of them. Unless I’m mistaken.”

Gendry looks a little too happy at that. “You’ve kept track of me. I’m flattered.”

“Your wife can’t be, though. Flattered.”

“She has a lover of her own. We’re happy. In our own way.”

“Really? That would not make me happy.” She weighs the sixth and final knife in her hand. “Lucky I didn’t marry you.”

Gendry laughs. “If I’d married you, I never would’ve strayed.”

Arya shakes her head and throws the knife. Another perfect hit. “Don’t be so sure about that.”

“Oh, I’m sure cos I know you would’ve gelded me. Reckon that threat would’ve been enough to keep me in line.” He walks closer in a slow saunter that once would’ve enticed. “And you? Got yourself a husband? Children? No one seems to know, really. No one I’ve asked anyway.”

“Neither.” She pulls the knives from the target and returns to her position. “And that’s never changing.”

Gendry is quiet for a moment. Watching her in a gentle sort of way. “Are you happy, at least?”

Arya lines up the knives for another round. “As happy as I can be.”

“And why does that sound so… sad.”

“Does it? I don’t feel sad.”

He moves closer still. “You don’t look sad either. You look good. I like your hair.” He curls the end of her braid around his finger. “Never seen you in a braid before.”

Arya plucks her hair from his fingers. “Are you looking to get yourself a sixth bastard?”

A smile twitches at his lips. “Would that be so bad? Stark and Baratheon, united at last."

“Yeah, it would.”

“I still think about you sometimes. You’re a difficult woman to forget. But then you Stark girls are, aren’t you? My father would agree. And Jon. He loved her even back then, didn't he?”

“That’s not us,” she says as kindly as she can. “If you had me, you’d grow tired of me.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“I’d grow tired of you, then.“

Gendry bows his head, staring at the ground. “Did I matter at all to you? Or did you just want to fuck someone in case we all died.”

Arya cups his cheek and tilts his head back up so he can see the sincerity in her eyes. “You were my first love. You’ll always matter. But I loved you when I was too young. And you loved me too late. I wanted other things, then. I still want other things.” She brushes his cheek with her thumb before releasing him. “I’m married, Gendry.”

“I thought you said you had no husband.”

“I don’t.”

Gendry’s eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. He stands like that for a heartbeat before he grins widely. “That girl with you. We did wonder, Davos and I. She’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Well, if you girls want company--” Arya shoves him before he can finish the offer. Laughing, he tumbles back a few steps. “Never hurts to ask, does it.”

He says something else, then, but she’s not listening anymore. A familiar man skulks in the shadows of the courtyard. Nosing about the servants’ quarters. The cutter. And he doesn’t look like a man who bides his time anymore but someone on the hunt.

“Put these back, will you?” She hands Gendry the knives, her own of Valyrian steel ever on her hip. “I need to take a piss.”

* * *

Old Nan used to talk about the blood sacrifices of old. Older even than herself, even though that seemed impossible to little Arya Underfoot, for nothing save the tree and the very Winterfell itself could be older than Old Nan. They would hang them from the trees, she said, the ones they had sacrificed. Their bodies, their limbs, their entrails. Arya thinks about that as she loosens her braid and loosens the laces of her doublet and bites her lip to make it plump and red. She thinks about intestines hanging like garlands among the strings of flowers and the pale ribbons dancing in the breeze. She thinks of bloodred weddings and revenge and how the Hound might’ve been right, in some ways, but how he was wrong too. (Or, rather, how she was.)

Tilia usually does this bit. Being the bait. She’s the pretty one. She looks younger too. They like that. Men. Young and innocent. Untouched. But rumpled and horny works too. Even a man on the hunt has time for a willing woman in the dark. It takes but a moment, after all, for a man to spill. Arya lures him into the godswood easily. No one’s there now but her and the wolves and this monster who’ll soon be theirs to feast on.

She no longer believes in any gods. Not even the God of Death. But she is the daughter of it. The bringer of it. And when she gives death, she gives life too to all the little girls out there this monster won’t be able to touch. 

She was made for this. _That_ she believes. When she pushed Needle into the soft belly of a stable boy, it slid in as easy as through snow. The shock of it was brief, never truly haunted her, and by the time of her second kill, the Frey man she stabbed over and over and over, killing seemed the easiest thing in the world. Each stab felt good and right and satisfying. It was almost thrilling, back then. Exciting. But over the years that changed. Now, as her victim’s lifesblood gushes over her hand, something in her realigns, calms, settles. Eyes sliding closed, she breathes out and finds some inner peace--

Voices reach her. Drustan. Davos. Speaking of constellations one cannot see in the south. As always, her instincts tell her to run. The body is too heavy and the voices too close. Nowhere in the whole world would she let herself be found next to a dead body with blood on her hand. But this isn’t just any place; this is Winterfell. There might not be any safe places in the world, but this is as close as she’ll ever get. And if she runs and they find a dead man at the heart-tree… They’ll have to alert the Queen. And the moment Jon sees the neat cut only a trained hand holding Valyrian steel can accomplish, he’ll know.

Arya pants, widens her eyes. Lets her only hand tremble, just a bit. Staggers toward the approaching men.

“He tried to--” She lets her voice break. “I was just getting some air and he-- Please don’t tell Sansa. I don’t want to ruin her wedding.”

Drustan kneels by the corpse, but Davos bows his head to make himself small and walks slowly closer. “Are you all right, m’lady? Did he hurt you?”

“He wanted to but…” Arya shakes her head and enriches her voice with a quiver, as if she’s doing her very best to look brave. “I can take care of myself.”

Davos gives her a fatherly smile. “Aye, I’ve seen that.”

“Get her inside, ser,” Drustan says (and his sharp eyes say he’s less convinced by her act, but at least she's bought herself some time). “I’ll take care of this.”

"At once, Your Grace." Davos offers Arya his arm; she takes it. “Come, m’lady. Let’s get you cleaned up. Drink some ale. Forget this terrible man.”

* * *

* * *

  
  


When Farran returns, it’s with a spring in her step, a flush to her cheeks, and braid hastily woven rather than neatly plaited by Tilia’s own fingers. Jealousy hot like tar slithers through her body. She did notice the lord Gendry sneak after her. But then, as Farran comes nearer, Tilia notices something else too: a tell-tale glint in her eyes.

Sometimes, even though she’s never uttered this thought aloud, she wonders whether knowing they made the world a little safer isn’t the only pleasure Farran takes from a kill. Granted, all this time they’ve known each other, Farran has only ever hurt evil. She even takes great precautions to ensure she never hurts anyone else. Still, though… Tilia can’t shake the feeling that the killing is its own pleasure.

“You promised,” she whispers, a hand firmly around Farran’s wrist to tug her close.

“Listen.” Farran’s breath is hot against her ear. “I didn’t plan it. Caught him sniffing about and… Well, there was no time. I did what I had to. He was going to hurt someone. I know it."

She pulls back and lets Tilia find the truth in her eyes--and she does. Farran is a good liar when she wants to be, but you don’t share three years together without learning to tell lie from truth when it matters.

Tilia exhales her relief and lets go of her wrist. “Does that mean we can enjoy the feast?”

Farran’s eyes soften with a smile. “Yeah, we can enjoy the feast.”

Tilia never thought she could feel as if she belonged in a castle, but here among Wildlings and crannogmen and northern lords and ladies, the idea doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all. The highborn in this beautiful kingdom are rougher around the edges than the fine and haughty Essosi elite. When Farran was on the hunt, no matter where Tilia turned, she found someone to talk to who didn’t wrinkle their nose at her lack of court manners or simple way of talking. And now, as tables are cleared for dancing, she notices that she and Farran can be themselves in another way too. 

They’ve learned to be careful. In many places in the world, the people around them either have hate for their type of love or see it as something to be bought and consumed by leering men. But here, in this faraway corner of the world, pairings form on and off the dance floor and not all of them consists of one man and one woman. Tilia sees wildling men kiss. She sees a spearwife pull a giggling lady to her lap. She sees another lady sneak off with two men in tow, one highborn northerner, the other a Dornishman. There are some looks, of course, some murmurs, but most seem unperturbed and it's clear to her that here they don't need to mind their eyes and hands and lips. They can dance as entangled and in love as the bride and groom, who sway together beneath the chandeliers.

They were haunted by demons, once, Queen Sansa and her Jon. Just like Farran. Tilia has heard far from all of it, but she’s heard enough to know they’ve suffered so much it’s a wonder they’re not buckling beneath the weight of it. But they stand tall and their dance is as light and free as that of the butterflies who fluttered through the godswood at their joining. As husband and wife, they no longer care about minding their eyes and hand and lips the way they have around their sister these past two weeks. Now they gaze and touch and kiss and _love_ one another.

 _That can be us,_ Tilia thinks as she accepts her wife's silent invitation to dance by taking her hand. _We can heal here at Winterfell together._

Tilia has heard of the bedding ceremony, the way these Westerosi folk separate bride and groom and undress them before letting them come together in their bed chamber. But she’s also heard Lord Jon declare rather loudly that if anyone touches his bride, they’ll leave the Great Hall with a broken nose. Something that was met with roaring laughter. And when, barely an hour into their dancing, Queen Sansa and Lord Jon head toward the backdoor hand-in-hand, the only thing that follows them is a cacophony of hoots and well-wishes and filthy jokes and suggestions on how to best spend their wedding night.

"Oh, those two know how to fuck," King Tormund shouts. "They don't need any help. Just ask the poor chambermaids who've walked in on--"

Ser Davos shuts him up with a well-aimed elbow to his side. King Tormund just grins. Farran rolls her eyes.

"Can we stay for a few hours?" she says. "I don't want to hear them."

They did, one night. After returning from a midnight dip in the hot pools, they heard moans and a creaking bed through the walls as they entered the hallway. Farran gagged, turned on her heel, and escorted Tilia to the kitchens where they found themselves some ale and leftover treats. They stayed there for two hours before stumbling back to bed, a bit drunk and giggly and ready to make some noise of their own.

They will tonight too, Tilia thinks. She’s in her pretty green dress and Farran’s restlessness has finally faded. She’s present as she leads Tilia over the dance floor in steps they make up as they go. She’s present as she pulls Tilia close and kisses her for all the North to see. She’s present when they sink down on a bench, sweaty and tired, and quench their thirst with ale and wine, and laugh and talk with Farran’s old friends as wife and wife. Her fear that Farran was ashamed of her seems such a silly thing now. And when they eventually leave the Great Hall for their bed chamber, Tilia feels as if she's floating down the hallway. She feels almost the newlywed herself in her pretty dress and the even prettier things she wears beneath. “Arya and I have never talked about girls, but,” Queen Sansa said as she handed Tilia the bundle of lace and silk, “Jon loves it when I dress up for him in something pretty. Maybe Arya likes that too.”

Tilia isn’t one to blush, really, but she did blush, then. Deeply. And she blushes now too, when Farran undresses her with a surprised noise in the back of her throat. They rarely waste coin on smallclothes--and never on frilly smallclothes.

Tilia bites her lip. “Do you like it?”

Farran’s eyes travel her body. “You’re gorgeous,” she murmurs and hooks a finger under the waistband of the ruffled shorts and tugs Tilia close. “But I like you better naked.”

Even so, Farran takes her time untying all the bows and laces. She takes her time removing all that silk before kissing every inch of Tilia’s body. There’s still a voice in the back of Tilia’s head reminding her that Farran killed tonight. That she’s only present because of it. But she ignores it, wants to drift away in this sea of pleasure and happiness where a golden future finally seems possible for them. A future where she'll wear her pretty dress and her pretty smallclothes and fall asleep in a bed made of clouds, in her wife's arms, clean and full and safe.

“We should get some sleep.” Farran tucks her into her embrace. They’re both sated and a little damp. They smell of one another. Smiling, Tilia presses a kiss to Farran’s collarbone. “We’re leaving tomorrow. Early.”

_Oh._

All that good joy drains from Tilia in an instant. She lies still, the warm arms holding her close no longer sweet but stifling. Slowly, she extracts herself from Farran’s embrace and lies down on her back.

“We’re leaving?”

“Yeah. I said we’d stay for the wedding and now the wedding’s over so..."

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Back to Braavos. Or we’ll ride through Westeros. Anywhere you want.”

“Anywhere _I_ want?” Tilia sits up, the coverlet falling to her lap. She tugs it back up to cover herself. “What if I want to stay, though?”

“At Winterfell?”

“In the North. Doesn’t have to be Winterfell.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Live? Wouldn’t it be nice to _live_ for a change?”

“We live.”

“No. We don’t. We kill."

"Yeah, we kill. And we travel and we--"

"You know what I think, Farran? I think you want to leave cos you don’t wanna face them tomorrow. Not after what you did. Just admit it. Cos if you do, then you have to tell them how we spend our life and you don’t want to. Cos deep down you know that what we’re doing is--”

“Needed.” Farran sits up too, her eyes blazing. “What we do is _necessary_.”

“Arya Stark _is_ spoiled. It’s easy for you to leave all this cos you know it’ll always be here. If you get tired of going to bed not knowing if you’ll eat tomorrow, if you get tired of waking up with a hundred flea bites, if you get tired of searching through the room or barricading the door before you go to bed in case someone wants to rape or rob or kill you, if you get tired of always looking over your shoulder in case someone’s onto you, you can always come back here. Winterfell will always be here for you. Your family will always welcome you home. They’ll hug you and feed you and tell you it’ll be all right. No matter what you’ve done. No matter how bleeding rude you are." Her eyes sting with tears. She scrunches up her face and looks away. "They would never sell you. Even if they were starving. _Never_. They'd find a way."

“I should’ve killed Dolo,” Farran mutters. “You should’ve let me.”

“This is not about Dolo!” Tilia whips around, glaring at her. “This is about you and me. All my life I've fought to survive. It's all I know. But then we came here and this is the first time in my whole life I don’t have to worry about hunger or fleas or getting killed in my sleep or any of it. I don't even check underneath the bed anymore! The only thing I worry about is _you_ , Farran. Or Arya. I don’t even know. Cos you haven’t said.” She lets out a breath, tilting her head up as she shakes it. “I don’t know who you are. My own wife. Every time you wear one of them faces, I’m so worried that you’ll lose yourself again--but who are you? Really. I don’t even know what you want me to call you. I call you Arya in front of them, yeah, but in here”--Tilia touches her chest; it shudders with a wet inhale--”in here you’re still Farran. _My_ Farran. But now I wonder if you ever was.”

Farran looks at her with glossy eyes. Her bottom lip even trembles a little. And that’s not a lie either. Nor is the way her lashes flutter when she looks away a lie or the tear that spills from them when she does. She even curls in on herself, arms folded around her body.

“Every time we kill someone,” Tilia whispers, blinking to clear her eyes, “I feel like a piece of them stays with me. Like I get a bit of their darkness inside me. And I grow darker and darker every time. Don’t you feel that? Or is it too late? Did you ever feel it?"

Farran says nothing. Doesn't even meet her eyes.

"Don’t you want to be surrounded by life for a change?" Gently, Tilia touches her shoulder. When Farran doesn't shy away, she rubs her thumb soothingly over her cool skin. "Don’t you want to heal like your brother has healed? You should’ve seen yourself today. With the little princess and all. Or when we played with the kite. You never laugh like that, Farran. Never.”

“And what if I can’t stay?” Farran pulls away from her, then. “Do I have to choose between you and the only thing that makes any sense to me? I have the power to stop awful men from hurting innocent people. How can I live in a castle and grow fat and old like a useless piece of shit while people are _suffering_? That’s not me. You know it’s not me. I have to _help_ people.”

“But you don’t help; you kill.”

“I help _by_ killing.”

“You don’t see yourself when you do it, though. Sometimes I think..." Tilia's racing heart steals her voice. She clears her throat and tries again, tries finally voicing the terrifying thought she's kept to herself for far too long. "Sometimes I think it's just an excuse. That you just like killing, yeah. And that’s why you find monsters. So you can keep doing without feeling bad about it.”

Farran regards her for long enough Tilia has to fight the urge to squirm. “Wouldn't that make me a monster too?"

“I hope not.” Tilia laughs wetly, helplessly. “I think you're wonderful when you're not killing. You're funny and clever and sweet and generous. But sometimes you scare me a little bit. Cos you don’t want to be vulnerable. Cos you don’t want to feel anything but love or hate. And every time you kill someone, it’s like you’re quenching yourself in their blood to harden yourself. So you don’t have to feel anything painful ever. But you have to, Farran. You need to feel everything in between too. Cos if you just keep killing and killing, I think it’ll end up killing everything good in you until you’re so hard the only thing that can make you feel something _is_ killing.”

Farran stares down at the coverlet bunched in her lap, her messy braid falling over her shoulder. “It’s not that easy,” she mumbles. “To just change. I’ve been doing this my whole life. It's all _I_ know.”

“And when has something being difficult ever stopped you?”

At first, Farran is quiet. Then comes a chuckle, quick and quiet under her breath. “Yeah,” she says, cupping her stump.

“We can still help people. We can still stop monsters. We'll find a way. A better way.” Tilia scoots closer and brushes a kiss to Farran’s shoulder. “I just think you need to heal a bit first--and so do I--cos it’s not just the faces that are poison, is it? This life is too, don’t you reckon? If we don’t take care of ourselves, soon we won’t be able to help anyone. So why don’t we stay for a little while, Farran, just a--”

“Arya.” Her name comes out in a choked whisper. She swallows. Blinks. “I was always Arya. When I fell for you, when I married you, when I brought you home to Winterfell. I just used a different name, that’s all, but I was always me with you. I promise. I was always Arya. _Your_ Arya. If you still want me to be."

She looks up at Tilia with wide eyes, clear eyes, only spilled one little teardrop before she found her composure. But they still carry so much pain Tilia’s chest constricts and she pulls Arya into her arms and holds her so so close. 

“You’re my Arya,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to her wife’s hair. "And I'm your Tia. But we need more people than just one another, all right? Didn't realize that until we came here, but I think we need a pack too."

“That means I have to tell them. I have to explain.”

“And I’ll be right there with you, if you want me to.”

Arya tips her head back and looks up at her. “Yeah?”

“You and me, _always_ ," Tilia whispers and seals that promise with a kiss.

* * *

* * *

Arya wakes to bird song. Tilia sleeps on, safe and snug beneath the coverlet. A few doors down the newly-weds are sleeping too. They’ll rise late, Arya gathers. She still has lots of time to pack her things and leave. Leave a goodbye note. Leave Davos and Drustan to explain the dead man in the godswood. Leave with her wife to return once enough years have passed that Jon and Sansa will accept brief company without any real answers.

The cutter's blood felt good against her skin. It did. Arya flexes her hand. It always feels good. A release. 

Taking a man’s life should never be easy, that’s what her father would’ve said. No matter what that man has done. 

She’s not sure she agrees. Killing a monster shouldn’t be difficult. But, perhaps, it shouldn’t be a joy either.

Tilia is beautiful when she sleeps. Rosy-cheeked and calm. The sunlight pushing in through the shutters plays in her long dark hair. She's never had a place to call home. Not after her family died and she found herself alone on the streets at such a young age she barely remembers what family means. The group of wharf rats she grew up with was ever-changing. Only Dolo was a constant until he betrayed her. 

Still, she wouldn't let Arya kill him. Loved him like a brother, she said, and Arya thought about her own brother. The way he had betrayed them. He never sold Arya, but he sold their home. Their independence. It's not the same, she knows. Jon would never sell _her_. But it's still similar enough she was so angry with Dolo she lost all sense and Tilia had to threaten to leave her if she went through with it.

Arya rolls over on her back and stares up at the ceiling, at the familiar cracks and ridges of the stone kept in place by dark wooden beams.

She’s been on the run most of her life. Even when the Stark banners flew over Winterfell once more and all their enemies were dead, Arya left her sister to roam the hallways alone for Winterfell was no longer golden enough for her liking. She left her brother to hide in the snow, to await death alone, for she couldn't bear showing him the woman she'd grown up to become. She couldn't bear looking at him and see not the hero of her childhood but a man as flawed and broken as herself.

If only Arya had gotten over herself and returned home sooner... She could've helped them find happiness. They could've made Winterfell golden together.

She thinks of Mother and Father, then. Standing on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, always arm in arm, always smiling proudly as they watched their little pack play.

Father was wrong. The lone wolf does survive--but there's more to life than merely surviving. The lone wolf needs its pack not to survive but to thrive.

Perhaps that's what he meant.

Arya shifts onto her side and wraps an arm around her sleep-warm wife. Buries her nose in hair that now always smells of soap.

Perhaps it's time they thrived.


	36. The Wolves of Winterfell Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a rather long chapter, but it's also, finally, the last chapter before the epilogue. Hurray! We’re almost done :)))
> 
> Warning: there are some descriptions/hints of violence and gore and a threat of rape that never moves further than that and that is spoken, not an actual attempt (all taking place in the past)

“This is no fun. I’d barely settled in, Sansa.”

“I can’t help it!”

“I like taking my time.”

“I know you do. But it’s impossible to hold back.”

“Did you even try?”

“I did! I _promise_.”

Jon shakes his head, beard rasping against her thigh. “Suppose I have no choice but to do it again, then.”

“You have no choice?”

“If you want to get better at something, you have to practice. So I will help you.” His lips twitch with a held back smirk. “As a kindness.”

“Oh, as a _kindne_ \-- _”_

The rest of her retort gets lost in a strangled moan as he descends on her. She tries this time too--she really does--but her body has a will of its own and soon she’s shuddering beneath him for the second time in almost no time at all. 

Jon lifts his head, lips gleaming. “Really?”

“I’m sorry.”

He heaves a sigh, hot breath wafting over her. “We’ve barely been married a day and you’re already a disappointment.”

She feigns a glare at him, biting her lip to stop herself from grinning. “It’s the pregnancy, you know that, and since _you’re_ the one who put me in this state…”

“Oh, it’s my fault?”

“I think so.”

“Then how come _I’m_ the one suffering? I’m not asking for much, Sansa. I just…” He kisses the inside of her thigh. “Just hold back a bit longer. _Focus_.” He looks up at her with wide brown puppy dog eyes, fingers circling her sensitive bud without touching it yet. “For me?”

“I don’t think I have one more in me.” 

“Pitiful.”

“Husband,” she says, reaching down to cup his cheek, “make love to me.”

That softens the mischievous glint in his eyes into something so loving, so intoxicating, she tugs him up her body and cups the back of his head with one hand just so she can kiss him deeply, languidly as she makes him hard with the other. So she can kiss her husband as he sinks into her.

She hated this once, trapped on her back in the cage of a man’s body. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t ignore her instincts screaming at her to get away. With Jon it’s different. She’s come to love it, come to feel safe with him there. She knows she won’t peak again, but this is its own pleasure, its own fulfillment, whispering into his ear how good her husband feels, how no one’s ever made her feel this good and no one else ever will for she is his for the rest of their days. Whispering nothing but truths until he comes with a grunt he buries in her neck.

He rolls off her with a content hum almost instantly, his hand moving to her belly.

“Don’t worry.” She strokes Jon’s hand. “Little Tormund is fine. Or Tormundella.”

Jon groans. “He told me Tormundessa last night.”

“That’s new. Princess Tormundessa Stark.”

“Perfect,” Jon murmurs, chuckling. “I’m getting hungry.”

“Me too. Me and Tormundessa both.”

“ _Stop_.” He nips her earlobe. “So… How about we eat. And then we hand our daughter over to her aunt and then”--he nuzzles Sansa’s jaw before reaching down and picking up the lacy smallclothes she wore last night off the floor--”we go back here and you put on this lovely little thing and sit on my--" A knock interrupts him. Jon sighs. Deeply. “They do know it’s the morning after our wedding night, don’t they?”

“Which means it must be important.”

Sansa kisses his nose before nudging Jon off her. Then, as he crawls beneath the coverlet to hide his damp, naked body, she hides her own by slipping into a robe before cracking the door open.

* * *

A dead man lies in one of the empty dungeon cells. The sheet draped over his body leaves only his face uncovered. He’s familiar. Forty, perhaps, but Sansa’s memory tells her he should be older. In his fifties at least.

“What killed him?” Jon asks.

Drustan, who’s stood quietly by the wall so far, nods at the sheet. Jon lifts it. The man is simply dressed and has calloused hands and a throat slit open in the same neat cut that ended Littlefinger’s life. Jon’s eyes dart to hers, round and haunted beneath tugged together brows, but he doesn’t say a thing. Wants to protect their sister, of course, but Sansa knows Drustan and the all too kind look in his eyes well. She knows he knows for her has put Athor, his most trusted man, to guard the body.

“How did you know?" she asks.

He pushes himself off the wall and walks closer (but never too close, not anymore). “Ser Davos and I found her standing by the body. She confessed instantly. Claims he assaulted her, but… I’m sorry, Sansa, I think that was a lie.”

“Arya wouldn’t kill someone for no reason.” Sansa’s eyes return to the man with the familiar face. He’s not quite right, but that cleft chin, the fair reddish hair… “Send for Kari.”

Kari pales when she sees him. Fumbles for Sansa’s hand before she snatches it back as if remembering Sansa’s title (and the lack of her own)--and that’s all Sansa needs to have her suspicions confirmed. Still, she takes Kari’s hand and holds it firmly to offer her support as she waits for her loyal handmaiden’s words.

* * *

There’s something of the soldier about Arya. While Tilia looks small and Kari clutches a cup of calming tea and Jon oozes discomfort (and doesn’t touch the breakfast food spread over the table despite his ability to eat anything anywhere and in any situation), Arya sits calmly in her chair, posture excellent and expression inscrutable. There’s something of the queen about her. Sansa knows she looks exactly the same.

At least Arya’s here, though. That was a surprise. Sansa could’ve bet a gold dragon or three on her sister being halfway to White Harbor already.

“Kari,” Sansa says, “whenever you’re ready.”

Kari nods. Sips more of the tea Wolkan prepared for her. Whenever she lets go of the tea cup, her fingers tremble. She clasps them in her lap.

“My husband was a bad man. Used to beat me. Burn me. Cut me. Used to take a knife and push it into my thigh--not enough to draw blood, mind, just enough to sting a bit. ‘There’s this big vein, right here, and if I nick it,’ he'd say and then he’d grin at me and cut me somewhere else. He was a butcher’s son. A butcher himself. And our boy would’ve--” She wraps her hands around the cup again, staring into the bowl of it. “We lost him in the war, our boy. He started resenting our daughter. Why was she alive when our boy wasn’t? Knew it was only a matter of time before he beat on her too. Got her married off. Only fourteen but I found a good man for her. Once she was safe I took a knife. Cut him in his bleeding thigh. Knew just where, didn’t I.”

Her last words come out in a breathy laugh. She sniffles, wipes her nose with a napkin.

“He had two brothers, my husband did. They all looked alike, but the oldest was different. The oldest was a by the book sort of man. Always wanted to do things proper and right. Dragged me and my sister before the Queen and all. Ella had helped me, see. We got him drunk, my husband, bound him up when he nodded off. Waited for him to wake…” Kari presses her lips together, face drawn and pale. “Cruel, I suppose. But I wanted him to know that he would die and how. I wanted him to know it was me. Still, can’t blame my good-brother for wanting me hanged. Her Grace refused, though. I said it was self-defense and she believed me. His older brother was mad, he was, but he accepted it. His younger brother, though…”

“He came here to hurt you,” Arya says. “To kill you. Get his revenge.”

“Seems like. He did say something at the time, but I got work here. Me and Ella. We were safe and over the years... I forgot. I can’t believe I forgot about Alyn--but I did. I just never thought he’d try something. Not with me at Winterfell, working for the Queen.”

“I think it was the wedding,” Arya says. “With so many people moving in and out of the castle. That was his chance.”

“And how did you know?” Sansa asks calmly. “How did you know he was going to hurt Kari?”

“I have my ways.”

“You're lying,” Sansa says. “You didn't know. So why did you kill him?”

“Are you mad at me?” Arya raises a brow. “For saving your handmaiden.”

“No, I’m grateful. Kari is very important to me and our family. I just want to understand, Arya. We all do.”

“I knew he would hurt someone. He cut people too. Whores. And I know…” Her eyes flit to Jon before returning to Sansa. “I caught him sniffing about outside the servants’ quarters. And I knew that--”

“You _suspected,_ " Jon says.

“I knew.” Arya meets his gaze without wavering. “I know a killer when I see one. And I know what happens if I don’t act on my instinct. If I ignore it. People end up hurt. Sometimes a lot of people. So I acted.”

Jon rises from the table. Walks to the window. The curve of his shoulders forms a sad, sloping shape. Sansa’s heart clenches for him. She aches to hold him, to stroke his hair and kiss his temple, but he needs time to sort his emotions and this is not the place. She leaves him be.

When she turns back to the table, Kari has slipped away unnoticed, leaving the Starks to deal with their own.

Arya still looks almost insultingly cool.

“Is this what you do now?” Sansa asks. “You see a man you _suspect_ might be a killer and you kill him first?”

“No one should have that power.” Jon’s voice rasps along her spine. “Killing someone for what they _might_ do.” His boots clicking against the flagstones and the rustling of his clothes tell her he turns around, but he doesn’t take his seat. He remains by the window. “I knew Daenerys would kill more people because she made her intentions clear and I knew her. But you didn’t know. You didn’t even know who he was. What if you’d been wrong?”

Arya’s gaze darkens. A muscle in her jaw twitches. “I wasn’t. I never am. I--”

Tilia tempers her with a touch of her hand, with soothing circles rubbed over Arya’s knuckles, with an encouraging smile and nod that can only mean they’ve discussed this already. That Arya has decided to finally tell them about her life.

Sansa sits back in silence and waits.

* * *

* * *

Arya returns to King’s Landing whenever she can. Walking among the ruins, she reminds herself of what happens when you let monsters live among men despite having the power to stop them. She reminds herself of Sandor Clegane.

His obsession with revenge killed him. Kept him from living too before he fell into the flames. That would be her fate unless she changed. She left Westeros with his last words echoing in her mind and a hope for something better blossoming in her heart. She was tired of death and misery and wanted to see a world without it, but no matter where she went the world was full of horror. That made her reexamine his words. It made her ponder her own purpose.

“He was right, the Hound,” she says. “I was wrong in seeking revenge. Because…” Her hand tightens around Tilia’s hand; Tilia squeezes it three times. A comfort. A reminder of their love and their vows. Of her endless support. “Because it was the only thing that mattered. And it made me cruel.”

She thinks about the serving maid often. The pretty one whose face she stole just to get to Walder Frey. She might’ve been a lovely girl. She might’ve been a mother, a wife, a sister; she might’ve had loved ones who needed her, relied on her, wondered why she disappeared.

It ate at Arya, afterwards. The serving girl invaded her thoughts. She saw her face in crowds, wide eyes pleading. Judging. She saw her in her nightmares. One night, Arya took that face from her satchel and burned it. It didn’t help. She still saw the serving maid’s face in crowds and nightmares--and soon other faces joined her. Faces of casualties when Arya’s hunger for revenge made her reckless and callous. They weren’t many, granted, but even just one would’ve been one too many.

That confession sticks to the roof of her mouth, though. Jon’s eyes are on her. A bit wounded, more than a bit worried. She can’t stand to see revulsion too in their depths. She can’t tell him about the serving girl.

“I killed all the male Freys,” she says instead. “All the men grown. It didn’t matter to me whether or not they’d been personally involved in the Red Wedding. Nothing mattered but vengeance. Destroying their House the way they tried to destroy ours. But the way I did it… I took things too far. And my motivation was wrong too. I shouldn’t have killed for vengeance. Revenge only begets more revenge. _Prevention_ should’ve been my motivation. I realized that one night at an alehouse. Overheard some men talking about a brothel where you could get them young. Really young. It made me think of Meryn Trant.”

At the mention of that name, Sansa shivers with a shuddering intake of breath. Jon returns to the table instantly and cups her shoulder; as if to soak up the strength he offers, she leans her cheek against his arm for just a moment before she speaks.

“He was always the worst one. Among all Joffrey’s men. Some of them didn’t enjoy it. But he did. He really did. I have the scars to prove it.”

“I didn’t know when I killed him,” Arya says. “I killed him for Syrio Forel. But that was wrong too. Meryn Trant went to that brothel to get a girl. A young girl. A _child_. That’s why I should’ve killed him. Because he would’ve kept hurting little girls for the rest of his life. But I was too wrapped up in revenge back then. I didn’t understand what my true purpose was. What I should do with these abilities I’ve acquired. But I understand now. So that’s what I have done. It’s what Tia and I have done. It’s not revenge. It’s not even punishment. Not really. We learn of men who rape and beat and cut and kill--and we kill them. We kill the monsters and take what gold they have and we give it to the poor and we move on to the next place. That’s what we do. We save people from monsters.”

Jon’s brow furrows. With a final caress to Sansa’s shoulder, he sits back down, arms resting on the table as he leans forward to look Arya in the eye.

“And how does this happen? How do you do it?”

“It usually starts at a brothel. Whores know everything about a place. All the secrets. We take work, if we can find it. As scullery maids or laundresses or something like that,” she adds when Jon turns pale as a sheet. “And we befriend the whores. You wouldn’t believe the things brothel keepers will supply if you pay enough.”

“I believe it,” Sansa says. “I heard things about Littlefinger.”

“Yeah, I did too. He was known in Essos as well. Whatever you’ve heard, no matter how horrible, it was true. We’ve killed men like him. We’ve killed Meryn Trants and Joffreys and Ramsays. Men who will spend the rest of their lives torturing and raping and killing. Revenge is selfish and cruel. Revenge is baking sons into a pie and having fathers eat it. That is not how I do this. I execute them the way I executed Littlefinger. And every time, I save people. I save--”

“Me.” Sansa’s eyes shine with tears. “You save me. You save yourself. You save Mother and Robb and Rickon and Father.” She takes Jon’s hand on the table, weaving their fingers together. “You even save Jon.”

“Then can you blame me for enjoying it?”

Jon exhales, eyes drifting close. 

“It’s not the _killing_ I enjoy," Arya says and ignores the voice within that asks whether that's wholly true. "I enjoy it because it makes everything a bit more quiet. The noise in my head. The memories. The nightmares. The guilt.”

“The what ifs,” Sansa murmurs. “What if I’d made different choices? What would it have changed? Who would it have saved?”

Arya nods, mouth twisted. She has so many moments like that. Too many moments.

“You get it, then?” she says. “I can’t walk around knowing there’s a Ramsay nearby without doing anything. It's too stressful, makes me restless."

“I understand. We both do. Jon and I have our own what ifs. We’ve killed our own monsters. Even if we haven’t made a… career out of it.”

While Jon has opened his eyes now, he keeps them locked on the table. He wears his worry like the heavy cloak of old that left him slumping. Whatever his thoughts, he keeps them to himself.

“Thank you, Arya, for sharing this with us.” Smiling, Sansa squeezes Jon’s hand as she turns to him. “We should eat before it all goes cold. Will you please hand me the eggs?”

Jon gives her the basket of soft-boiled eggs. Grabs the basket of hard-boiled eggs for himself. Rolls one against the tabletop to make the shell crack and starts peeling it with too much focus.

“Am I still welcome?” Arya asks, watching him.

“This is your home,” Sansa says. “You can stay for as long as you like.”

“And what if I did? Stayed for a while. Would that be all right?”

Jon’s peeling stops. He looks up at her and nods. Even manages a warm albeit faint smile that lingers for but a moment before it fades. His silence stays, the only noise coming from him the tinny, wet crunching of eggshells. 

Well-mannered as always, Sansa chases away what could’ve become a strained silence by discussing practical things. If they are to stay for a while longer, will they need new clothes? Dresses, yes, if Tilia wishes it, but also breeches and doublets and tunics and smallclothes and so on. Tilia does her best to help by answering all questions with enthusiasm. Jon and Arya eat their breakfast.

No matter how much she stuffs her face, though, it doesn’t get rid of the hollow feeling in her stomach.

Only once she and Tilia leave the dining chamber and find a grateful Kari waiting in the hallway, pressing Arya’s hands between her own with a heartfelt, “Thank you, m’lady. _Thank you,_ ” does she feel a bit better.

But just a bit.

* * *

* * *

“It feels wrong, doesn’t it,” Jon says.

He’s back at the window, staring out at the courtyard. Arya and Tilia are walking toward the stables. Not to leave, though. She did say they will stay. They’ll exercise their horses, he supposes.

Or they’ll find another prey.

That’s what Arya does now. Hunt and kill. Day after day. Year after year.

“I don’t know what I thought she was doing, but it wasn’t this.”

“She was training to become an assassin, Jon.”

He nods, lips pursed. Nodareoh once told him that, as No One, he killed anyone. The elderly, the disabled, women, even children. If a name was given, he killed. Just like that.

“Suppose this is better,” Jon murmurs, turning around to face Sansa. “I just… It makes me uneasy. Doesn’t it make you uneasy?”

“I was Ramsay’s prisoner for months. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. I wouldn’t even have wished it on Cersei. Every time Arya kills another Ramsay, she saves countless girls from suffering what I suffered. If that’s how she wants to spend the rest of her life, then good for her. Good for a lot of people.”

“Is it? Good for her. Killing isn’t easy, Sansa. Even when they’re monsters. It changes you. Every time. If she keeps doing this, who will she be ten years from now. Or five or even just one?” 

“I don’t know. But maybe she thinks it’s worth it.”

“You’re not going to try to stop her?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Daenerys started out that way. Killing monsters.”

Sansa leaves her chair to stand in front of him, resting her hands on his chest. “It’s not the same. From what I’ve been told, she did it for power. You don’t see Arya gathering the people she’s saved, arming them, and telling them to fight wars for her so she can rule a city or a kingdom or a continent. She’s not collecting worshipers.”

“I know it’s not the same but--” Jon pushes down the corners of his mouth. “Suppose we don’t have to agree about everything.”

Sansa slides her hands up to his shoulders. Brushes her fingers over his beard. “We rarely do,” she says, smiling tenderly.

At first he frowns at her, but it’s impossible to keep frowning when she looks at him like that. He takes one of her hands and brings it to his lips for a kiss before holding it to his heart. “We’re not that bad, are we?”

“I was joking,” she murmurs. “And I think we can agree on one thing: we want what’s best for her.”

“Wasn’t that what we _couldn’t_ agree on?”

“Obviously, I don’t think that killing people all the time is what’s best for her. But she’s a grown woman. She makes her own decisions. And since I’m hardly going to throw her in a dungeon cell for executing rapists and killers--and nagging at her will only push her away--I suppose all we can do is... being there for her. When she needs us.”

“Aye. You’re right.” He wraps his arms around Sansa, resting his hands at the small of her back. “I just worry. That’s all.”

“Then tell her that. And tell her why. So she understands.” Sansa runs her fingers through his hair, still with that soft, soft look in her eyes that makes him melt. “Always so overprotective, my Jon.”

“I’ve gotten better, haven’t I?”

“Yes. You have.” She secures her hands behind his neck, pressing closer to him, her belly pushing into his. “I know she’ll always be your little sister--she’ll always be mine too--but she can take care of herself better than anyone I know.”

“Aye, she can _protect_ herself. But she needs others to care for her. We all do.”

“So we’ll care for her.” 

Jon nods, holding Sansa closer.

“Jon?” She dips her chin and looks at him through her lashes, a playful smile caught between her teeth. “We just had our first fight as husband and wife.”

“I wouldn’t call that a fight,” he says, a smile growing on his face until it stretches from ear to ear. “But perhaps”--he tilts his face up, whispering against his wife’s lips--”we can kiss and make up anyway?”

She kisses him with a small moan and he already wants her again, wants his _wife_ , wants her so much he lifts her up on the breakfast table so he can have her right there among the plates and cups and baskets of eggs.

So he can forget his worries for a moment and remember his joys.

  
  


* * *

* * *

As they came such a long way, some of the wedding guests stay for days. Between the numerous children, the puppies chosen by Sam’s boys, and the adults all wanting to catch up with one another through constantly interrupted conversations, Arya finds it rather easy to vanish in the clamor of it.

Oh, she knows she should get involved in the give and take. She knows she should spend more time with Gendry and learn about his new life as lord. She should spar with Brienne and talk about her seafaring with Davos. She should get to know Uncle Edmure and his family better. She should accept Robin’s invitation to learn falconry with him and his Karstark wife (also pregnant). But it’s still too much too soon. Arya can’t be herself around all these people--nor can she be No One wearing Arya Stark’s face. Not anymore.

Surprisingly, she finds herself spending time with Meera Reed. She’s the only one who doesn’t peer at Arya with poorly concealed curiosity and seems entirely fine with sharing companionable silence instead of anecdotes. They throw knives together, hunt rabbits, fish at the mere, watch over Wylis and Iselinde as they play with Lamb, and discuss how one would go about modifying a bow for the one-handed. Only when they see a raven foraging in the grass does the sparse conversation turn personal.

“Have you been to the valley?” Arya asks, eyeing the bird. “Have you been to see him?”

Meera shakes her head, brown curls bouncing. “Sometimes I think I should. Jon claims he’s still Bran somewhere in there. But I don’t know. And even if it’s true, I’m not sure it matters anymore. I’m not sure _I_ matter--or any of us, really.”

“He came to the wedding.”

“I noticed.” Meera shrugs. “I really believed in him once. I would’ve died for him. I believed him that important--and perhaps he is. But sometimes people just have to move on. You know?”

“Yeah,” Arya says for she does know--and she has tried. But she wasn’t moving on, was she? 

She was running away. Just like Jon--until he was ready to truly commit and returned to Sansa from Bran’s valley with a symbol of said commitment in the form of a magical flower.

It’s in front of the hwydulvar wyrt Arya finds her big brother the first day they finally have Winterfell back to themselves. He’s seated on the stone-paved path, legs criss-cross, sketching away in that notebook of his he often carries around. At the sound of her footsteps, he tenses up, flips a few pages, and scribbles something before closing the book and securing the pencil behind his ear.

“What secrets are you keeping?” 

Breathing out a relieved chuckle, Jon looks up at her as she settles down by his side. “I thought it was Sansa. Can you keep a secret?”

Arya just stares at him; Jon smiles and hands her the notebook.

Flipping through it, she finds rather good sketches of the things he’s built: the farm, the pavilion, the boat, and a rocking horse Iselinde sometimes rides when the weather keeps them indoors. She finds poorer sketches too, of a woman and her toddler Arya knows are Sansa and Iselinde only because she knows who drew them.

“You don’t have to say it,” Jon says. “I know they’re terrible. Animals, buildings, flowers, that’s all fine. But faces? Bodies? _Hands_? Can’t do it.”

“Have you shown her these?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t. They’re really unflattering.”

Jon laughs. “I won’t.”

Then Arya finds a page with different versions of Sansa’s bracelet and, on the pages following, the sketches he must’ve been working on today. Necklaces this time. A chain with a long crystal hanging from a wolf's jaws like a blade too similar to Longclaw. A choker with two wolves touching noses too similar to Sansa’s crown. A dragonfly pendant too young and girlish for a queen. A delicate chain with tiny heart-tree leaves clinging to it and a drop-shaped gem attached to the lowest leaf that’s pretty enough. And, finally, a tie necklace with a white wolf orchid, the ends of the chain dangling beneath its petals.

“For her nameday?”

“Aye. Are you staying that long? I know you don't like feasts, but last year we celebrated, just the three of us, a few days before her nameday. We went to the mere. Ate, talked, took the boat out and--” He stops abruptly, face the same brilliant red as the orchid’s markings. “Yeah.” He rubs his neck. “I know it’s a month away, but if--”

“We’ll stay.” Arya hands him back the notebook. “Don’t want to miss her nameday too. Missed yours, didn’t I?. With, what, a few weeks?”

“Aye. And a big one too. I’ll never forgive you.”

“That’s right. You’re thirty. You’re _old_.”

Jon gives a crooked smile. “Before you know it, you’ll be thirty too.”

“Maybe so. But by then you’ll be close to forty. You’ll have gray hair and everything--unless you’ve grown bald--”

Jon groans. “Not the _hair_.”

Arya grins. “Did she give you something good? For your nameday.”

“Aye. She got me a few things, but the best gift?” He smiles softly. “She told me she was pregnant. I’d suspected it but _knowing_... Best nameday I’ve ever had.”

“You want a whole pack, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do. Speaking of.” He gets to his feet. “I noticed something this morning.”

They leave the glass gardens and walk deeper into the godswood, toward the pine tree grove where the wolves dwell. As they usually let the wolves come to them, Arya rarely visits this part of the wood. But she knows they’ve dug a den beneath a pile of boulders draped with moss and grassy soil and pine needles. Today Ghost dozes atop it, while Fox and Shy are cuddled up in front of the entrance. It takes her a moment to find Fang, whose sandy gray fur blends in almost too well with the stone, but he’s close to the boulders too.

Ghost’s mate however, isn’t among them.

“Hadn’t seen her much lately,” Jon says. “Not that she’s the most sociable creature as is but… She’s in there.”

Arya smiles. “Pups.”

“Aye. Don’t think we’ll see them yet for weeks to come, but I’ve heard them. Didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

“You should've guessed. Barely seen a single woman who's not with child the past week.”

Jon leans his head back, regarding her. “Irritating?”

“Just an observation.”

“I found it painful once. And not just because I thought I couldn’t have it, but because I felt I couldn’t be part of it in any way that mattered. Life, I mean. I’d been too surrounded by death. By killing and dying. After I rose, I didn’t really feel alive. Then Sansa came and she made everything…”

He exhales, shaking his head as if he can’t put into words just how much the love Arya now knows budded at Castle Black means to him. 

“Golden?” she asks, quietly.

“Yeah. Warm, bright. But it was untouchable. It wasn’t for me. I might’ve left the black, but it always felt as if part of me still walked in the shadows. That it always would. Then I learned that my own mother died having me. It felt like a curse. What good could come out of that?”

“Gods, you’re dramatic.”

Jon laughs. “Aye, suppose I can be.”

“It’s nice, though. That you haven’t lost your brooding ways entirely. You’re so happy all the time I barely recognize you. You’ve even hung up Longclaw. Have you sparred even once since I came here?”

“Would you like to? I’ve learned some new techniques. There’s a man in Bran’s valley. Nodareoh. I think you’d like him. He used to be a Faceless Man until he couldn’t take the killing anymore. Taught me how to fight with quarterstaves. Taught me how to disarm instead of killing. He taught me how to breathe.” Jon fills himself with air and closes his eyes as he exhales. “He taught me to be present. To stop brooding all the time. Or try at least. I haven't always been successful. It was harder here."

Arya pretends to adjust her sleeve. “Do you miss it? The valley.”

“Not as such, but it helped me. I learned to appreciate life again. To be part of something. So I could be better. For Sansa and our child. For myself. I’d like to go back one day. With my family. It’s a beautiful place. You should see the godswood. I’ve never seen anything like it. Tilia would love it.”

“Is the orchid really magical?”

“Aye. Wanted to give Sansa something special. I needed to give her something special. So she'd know I was serious. That I wouldn't run away again."

“It worked. She loves it, that flower. It’s the necklace you should give her. With a…” Arya grabs the notebook from him and flips to the correct page, pointing at the ends of the chain dangling from the flower. “A river pearl hanging from each end. For her Tully heritage. It looks weird without anything there.”

Jon emits an appreciative hum, plucks the pencil from behind his ear, and adds the pearls to the sketch. “Like that?”

“Yeah. Perfect.”

“I didn’t know you could design jewelry.”

Arya stares at him. “You didn’t know _I_ could design jewelry?”

Jon laughs at that too. “I’ve had plenty of help. Believe me. Kari is a gift. Thank you for saving her, Arya.”

“Yeah,” Arya says with a shrug. “You think I could get a pup for the trouble?”

“I don’t know.” Jon tugs down the corners of his mouth and returns his attention to the den. “Lamb chose Iselinde. So maybe if you’re lucky... Means you’ll have to stay, though. For months.”

“Or that I’ll return.”

“Either way works for me.”

Then he pats her on the shoulder, holds up the notebook, and tells her he needs a word with the metalsmith.

Arya stays. Settles down on the ground with her back against one of the pine trees and watches the wolves rest in the sun-dappled grove.

Surrounded by a godswood in bloom, by bird song and bee buzzing and life, Arya closes her eyes and rests too.

* * *

As spring shifts into summer, the godswood bursts into brighter colors. Arya and Tilia take daily strolls, often passing the wolf den just to see whether the pups have emerged yet. Well, Arya sneaks closer on her own while Tilia picks flowers for the vase in their chamber. Out of all the luxuries castle life brings, fresh flowers every day is the one she treasures the most.

Today she’s picked a bouquet of lilac sprigs in pink and lavender and white. She’s breathing them in as they return to the pavilion, where they left Jon reading Iselinde to sleep while Sansa embroidered. Now, however, as they return, Jon is kneeling before his wife and resting his cheek against her stomach.

“Kick your father in the face,” he says, tapping against Sansa’s belly. “Come on.” He waits. Sighs. Prods, now. “Please?”

Sansa runs her fingers through his hair with the most gentle smile on her face. “Be patient, Jon. You have to let little Tormundessa grow bigger.”

“You should stop that before it sticks,” Arya says.

When Jon notices her, he looks almost abashed. They might’ve been affectionate during the wedding feast, him and Sansa, but they’ve slowly returned to staying respectful of her.

Or maybe they just don’t like the way she looks at them when they’re being so very obviously in love.

Guilt niggles at Arya’s conscience. Bending her lips into a smile, she sits down on one of the benches. “Is she being stubborn?”

Jon relaxes, returning his cheek to Sansa’s stomach. “I missed it last time. I left before Iselinde started kicking and I returned the night she was born. Not missing it this time.”

“Because you were in the valley. For months.” Arya props up her legs on the bench next to hers, as casual as you like. “Must be quite the place.”

“It’s very calm.” He drops a kiss to Sansa’s stomach before joining her on the bench, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Sansa snuggles closer with a happy hum. “During the day you did your work. Ate good food at noon--much better than I ever had at Castle Black. I still crave that reindeer stew sometimes. And, in the evening, we all gathered around a bonfire and sang and shared stories.”

“Not so different from here, then.”

“It was, though. At least back then. The way Sansa and I felt for one another complicated everything. And we couldn’t sort it out. We were still hurting too much. Up there, I could let that go and focus on myself in a way I couldn’t here. In a way I hadn’t been able to when I was alone either. Up there, it didn’t matter who I was or what I’d done. All that mattered was that I did my part.”

Biting her lip, Arya nods. “The pups aren’t out yet.”

“Give it a couple of weeks.” Sansa rests her hands on her belly. “The both of you.”

“What does it feel like?” Arya asks. “The kicking.”

“It feels like being gassy.”

“What, really?”

“Yes,” Sansa says, laughing. “At least at first. It feels just like being gassy.”

Grinning at her, Jon returns his hand to her stomach as if he just can’t help himself.

In the days that follow, he touches Sansa more often. Caresses her stomach, noses at her hair, pulls her in for a hug. He even kisses her. Her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her lips. 

It still makes Arya uncomfortable.

(She pretends it doesn’t.)

* * *

The pups come out a few days before Sansa’s not-nameday. About a month old, they wiggle forward on unsteady legs and tumble into one another. Two furry little sausages with the warm brown fur of their mother and one the same sandy-gray as Fang. The past few weeks Tilia has challenged her fear for all things doglike by playing fetch with Lamb and sometimes sneaking a pat with a trembling hand she quickly withdraws. By now she’s brave enough to stay at the edge of the grove (even if she stands behind Arya and peers over her shoulder). 

“All right, I admit it,” she says. "They're adorable."

“Do you think you’ll want one, then?”

“You can have your wolf if I can have a cat and some chickens.”

“Deal. It’ll be easier if you’ve known them since they’re pups.”

“That means we’ll have to stay, though. You think you can?”

“I don’t know,” Arya mumbles. “I’m trying.”

Tilia wraps her arms around her, chin resting on Arya’s shoulder. “That’s all anyone can ask.”

* * *

With the sun warm on her back, Arya gazes skyward beneath the shade of her hand. Up above a wolf soars, its tail a colorful bunch of fluttering ribbons. Jon constructed the kite and Sansa painted onto the silk amber fur and silver-gold eyes. Iselinde chose the ribbons for the tail, just grabbed a handful from her mother’s stores and threw them on the almost-finished kite with a toothy grin without caring in the least whether or not the colors matched. (They don't.)

“Am!” Iselinde points at it, beaming. “Am!”

“Aye.” Jon holds her legs tightly to keep her safe on his shoulders. “Lamb’s flying.”

On the ground, the actual Lamb looks at him as if he called her a cat. Then she trots off with her nose pressed to the ground, following some interesting smells rather than spending time with the silly humans and their insulting kite.

Arya returns her gaze to the flying Lamb. It looks so free up there. Away from it all. Sometimes she flies in her dreams, the sensation something akin to that of standing at the prow of a ship shooting across the waves or sitting atop a horse galloping over open fields only so much more exhilarating. So much more liberating. 

“I wish I could fly,” her mouth says of its own. “Don’t you?”

“No,” Jon says, chuckling. “I really don’t.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

“It’s all right.”

“Did you feel it? When he died.” She looks at Tilia to explain. “One of the dragons. Rhaegal. He was Jon’s, in a way.”

“He was,” Jon says. “And, yeah, I did. Suppose it should’ve been painful, but I was only relieved.”

"So you were never tempted? To, I don't know, embrace that part of you."

"Not really. The power a dragon gives you, I don’t think that’s good for you. And I don't think it can do much good either, that power. Too destructive."

Arya nods, still watching the wolf that could fly away so easily hadn’t it been tethered to Jon’s hand. “What did it feel like?”

"There's nothing like it. There really isn't. But it was terrifying too. And dangerous. I almost fell off. Could’ve died. Before the battle against the dead. I could’ve died. And for what?” He shakes his head. “I don’t care who fathered me. I was never meant for the sky.” He smiles, eyes drifting over to Sansa. She’s resting beneath the chestnut tree among soft cushions, one hand cradling her growing belly and the other toying absent-mindedly with the pearl-adorned ends of her new orchid necklace she hasn’t been able to stop touching since Jon hung it around her neck earlier today. “It was never even a choice.”

Arya opens her mouth to ask him whether he finally feels like a Stark, then, properly. But Sansa interrupts her by calling his name so excitedly Arya knows the baby is kicking without Sansa having to say it. Jon hands Tilia the kite and Arya his daughter before darting across the grass to the cushions. There he sinks to his knees and lowers his head to Sansa’s belly, mouth dropped open in an anticipatory smile.

With Iselinde on her hip, Arya walks closer as Sansa moves Jon’s hand to the right place. The wind carries the sound of his trembling intake of breath over the field. The light of the summer sun gleams in his wet eyes. Then he laughs, quiet, squeezes his eyes shut and kisses Sansa’s stomach so tenderly, so lovingly, Arya looks at the ground. 

“Sproutling?” Sansa waves at Iselinde. “Come. Our little wolf cub is kicking.”

Arya lets go of her niece who toddles over to her parents. Sansa guides her hand to the right place too. When Iselinde eyes widen with a delighted smile and she giggles at the kicking, Jon properly weeps. Strangely enough, even though she’s crying about everything, usually, Sansa doesn’t. She only smiles softly and combs her fingers through Jon’s hair, her bracelet glittering in the sunlight.

“Maybe you should call her Sindra,” Arya says as she and Tia settle down too. “If it’s a girl.”

“The thought has occurred to me,” Sansa says, still smiling. “Would you like to feel the baby kicking too?”

"Dunno," Arya mumbles, but Iselinde won't have it. She climbs over to Arya and reaches for her hand--only to find the stump. Puzzled, Iselinde falls down on her bum and looks up at Arya with adorable bemusement. 

A one-handed woman draws attention. It makes Arya easy to identify. It’s become second nature to hide it, to hold her arm, her body, in a way that means people don’t notice unless they look for it. Sometimes even Jon and Sansa forget. They’ll reach for her hand and jolt when they find nothing. Or they’ll ask her to help with something that requires more hands than Arya can offer. When she holds up the one she has with a grin, the color of her sibling’s face always deepens into red.

“I lost it,” Arya tells her niece. “But I still have this one.”

Looking pleased, now, Iselinde takes the proffered hand and pulls Arya with her. “Oof,” she says, pressing Arya’s hand to Sansa’s stomach. _“Oof._ ”

“Everything’s a wolf to her,” Sansa says. “The puppies in the kennels. The cats. Even foxes. She thinks it’s a little wolf cub--”

“It _is_ a little wolf cub,” Jon and Arya say at the same time. Their eyes meet and they grin together, their hands touching over the rhythmic kicking of the next little Stark.

“Oof,” Iselinde says, firmly.

“Yes, sweet girl.” Arya strokes her cheek. “It’s a wolf. Just like you and me. Just like all of us.”

When Arya returns to her place on the cushions, Iselinde follows her and sits down in her lap without prompting. It’s the first time that’s happened. The first time Iselinde has chosen Arya over anyone else. She knows it's because the child is curious about her missing hand. She knows that and yet warmth blooms in Arya’s chest. She can’t help but bow her head and smell her niece’s soft hair as tiny fingers grab her sleeve and tug and touch. Arya holds out her hand and her stump and lets Iselinde inspect and compare. Iselinde takes her time before holding out her own hands, lifting them against the blue sky and watching the way her fingers move. Then those fingers return to the stump. 

“Ow?” she asks.

“Yeah. Ow. It hurt a lot. But I'm fine now."

“Ow,” Iselinde says and places a big wet toddler kiss to the skin Bran’s maester once sewed together so carefully. “Theh.”

The warmth in Arya’s chest is too much to bear. It grows and twists and snaps. She’d like to run, like to feel her feet pounding the ground, like to leap into the air and fly away, far far away, but Iselinde sits so contentedly in her lap. She even yawns and snuggles more fully into Arya, anchoring her to the cushioned place beneath the chestnut tree.

Arya can feel the others’ eyes on her. She can feel her own sting and keeps them on the sleepy girl in her lap who usually naps by now, and begins to tell a tale without much conscious thought. A few sentences later, Iselinde sleeps in her aunt's lap. Arya keeps talking anyway, the memory’s need to expel itself from its hiding place so strong her lips can’t do much else but move.

* * *

  
  


Once upon a time there was a girl who sailed the seas in search of adventure and excitement and better things. Upon finding only hardship and hostility, however, she and her crew fled to their ship to return home. It was a long journey with no chance to restock their provisions. By the time they finally reached the waters that would lead them home, they’d grown weak and tired. They’d become easy prey for a pirate ship on the hunt for riches. But the girl had no riches to give. She had no treasures, nor even any wine, only a little ale and even less food. And she had herself and her weapons and what was left of her crew.

Determined to get something out of it, the pirate captain stole the girl's beloved sword and dagger and ship, and shipped her and her crew to a fine city on the sunny coast of a faraway land. There lived the richest of men, their wives bejeweled and their children spoiled rotten. There lived a lord whose lady wife was barren and had given him no children to spoil. This lady wife was a short woman whose hazel eyes and brown hair and strong brows bore such a strong resemblance to the seafaring girl they could’ve been sisters.

Years earlier, the girl had been stabbed in the stomach. The scars concerned the lord and lady, but the girl’s look was so right, they brought a healer to the harbor and had him examine the girl. Once he assured them the girl would be able to bear them an heir if only the stars and moon aligned just so and she’d drunk a fertility elixir brewed by his own self every day until then, they gave the pirate captain a fat purse full of gold coins. The girl and her men were theirs. 

It was a terrible fate to suffer, but in all of this misfortune the girl found some luck after all: the lady was a jealous, controlling woman. She wouldn’t allow her husband to take his pleasure from the girl. Not until the night of conception. A night decided for them by the healer who would perform a ritual under the next full moon. All to ensure a child would take root on the first try.

The rich lord and lady shackled her to a wall by her right hand and waited--and every day the lady would visit the girl herself to deliver the elixir and do her best to break her spirit. She’d tell the girl of the dreamwine they would make her drink to keep her docile on the upcoming night. She’d tell her of the golden cage they had commissioned in which the girl would live as her belly grew. In which she would stay after the birth too until her moonblood returned and they could put another babe in her belly. And there they would keep her until they’d gotten at least two sons and however many girls out of her. Then they would kill her. 

“Can’t risk any half siblings running around, can we?” the lady said with a cruel smile on her red-painted lips. 

Unbeknownst to the lady, the girl could steal faces. And every day, as she stared at the cruel lady’s face, she knew she would steal her husband’s face and torture her just so she could see the smug cruelty turn into horror. Then the girl would save her men and sail away in one of the lord’s ships. She just needed to get out of the cuff. But she had no tools and she was kept in a naked room. All alone. Getting her hand through the cuff would be difficult and painful, she knew, it might even ruin her hand forever. But the girl had been through worse. She’d gnaw off her own hand if it came to it. She was a wolf, after all.

It never went that far, luckily. All she needed was some de-gloving and blood to make her slippery. She wrapped her hand in her tunic and pushed away the pain as best as she could. It was too intense, though. Yes, the girl could steal faces, but the pain stole her focus. She couldn’t do it, she knew. She wouldn’t even be able to pass the guards to get into the lord and lady’s bedchamber. All she could do was steal one of the lady’s pretty, hooded cloaks and hope no one would notice. They did look alike, after all. And it worked. No one looked at her twice as she moved to the slave quarters. They only bowed their heads in respect for their lady.

Getting her men was easy. Getting aboard a ship was not. By then they had drawn some attention after all and had to fight their way free. The pain was too much to bear, then, and everything turned black. When she came to, she was at sea, carried toward safety by water and wind and her loyal men. Her joy was short-lived, however. Her wound would not heal. An infection spread. By the time their skiff glided into the harbor of the city where her brother was king, she was barely clinging to life. 

The king's healer did what he could and he did it well. The girl lived, but it cost her her hand. And she was tired, so tired. Tired of always fighting for her life. Tired of this world full of pain and horror. But it was the only thing she knew. It was the only thing there was. Either she could accept it and live in that world--or she could die in it and she didn’t want to die. She wanted her sword back, her dagger back, her-- 

It took her a year to track down the pirate captain. He’d kept the dagger. She thanked him with a smile carved into his throat. She took his face as payment and sailed the ship to the city where the rich lord and lady lived. That night, she sailed away drenched in their blood toward a different city where a rich master had given her sword to his little boy. She spared the son. She did not spare the father. Nor did she spare the crew on the ship. 

With her sword and her dagger and a satchel full of brand new faces, the girl walked the earth. She went from place to place and killed men who stole girls and sold them to monsters who had too much money and not enough heart. She killed the monsters too. She wore their faces more than she wore her own. She killed them two-handed. There were days she didn’t know who she was anymore. There were days she didn’t want to know.

Then, one day, she met another girl who’d been stolen and sold to be enjoyed by a monster. A girl she saved by killing that monster. They fled together and stayed together and for the first time in years, the girl found herself wanting to wear her own face. For the first time in years, the girl found another reason to live--a better reason to live. The girl found love. The girl found home. The girl found a reason to become her own self again and try to leave this dark world she'd walked in for years; alas, she no longer knew who that was.

She’s still not sure she knows and she can't help but think she'll never be able to leave the dark, after all.

She can't help but think that all she's accomplishing is dragging her love down with her.

* * *

Arya blinks. Her eyes burn. Her throat feels tight, sore. Her chest moves too quickly, the breaths she draws uneven and frail. Hands touch her shoulders, her back, her hair. Voices murmur comforting words and soothing noises. She’s being held and rocked, while she holds someone else, rocks someone else, finds comfort in the warmth of a sleeping child in her arms who seems to love her despite what she is. The fresh scent of rosewater fills her lungs. The coarse feel of a beard rasps against her scalp. The soft touch of her wife’s hand soothes her arm. The wet snout of a wolf noses at her hand.

Surrounded by everyone she loves the most in the world, Arya closes her eyes and allows herself to be held, to weep, until she sleeps too, safe in the pack’s embrace.

* * *

With her nameday taking place so shortly after the wedding, Sansa forgoes the traditional feast this year. Instead they celebrate by once more lining up tables on the fields outside the walls of Winterfell where the people living in the surrounding area can enjoy rich castle food and ale and sweets all for free. With bards playing and children running around and women and men dancing with flowers in their hair or pinned to the breast of their dresses and shirts, it reminds Arya more of a festival than a queen's nameday celebration. 

Everyone is in their finest clothes and their best mood and she can’t help but look for the cracks in the façade. The cuts and bruises. The girls and women afraid of their husbands and brothers and fathers and sons. A too loud, too quick laughter. A flinch at a raised hand. A meek smile that doesn’t--

“Arya.” Sansa stands before her in a simple dove gray dress, her crown a wonkily woven chain of oxeye daisies given to her by a flock of Wintertown children, the bracelet as always on her wrist and the orchid necklace of silver and gold and rubies and pearls gleaming on her chest. “I need some air. Would you join me?”

“We’re outside." Arya holds out her hand. "There's air everywhere.”

“Don’t play stupid. Just say no if you don’t want to.”

Arya throws a glance at her wife. She’s talking to Kari, both of them smiling brightly. Still, Tilia notices her immediately. Arya signs to her that she’ll be back soon. Once Tilia nods, Arya walks back through the gates with her sister.

Habitually, wordlessly, they walk to the godswood abreast. This time, however, they don’t seek out the heart-tree or even the pavilion but the wolf den. Ghost’s mate won’t let any human near her pups just yet, but she allows the Starks to sit down among the pine trees and watch from a distance.

“They’re so cute,” Sansa says. “I want to cuddle them so badly.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know which one you want?”

“No.”

“You’ll let one choose you?”

“Yeah.”

Sansa turns to Arya, regarding her for a beat. “What’s wrong? You’re very distracted today. Are you getting restless?”

“A bit.”

“You’re free to leave whenever you want.”

“I know.” Arya pulls her knees to her chest, chewing at her lip as her mind chews on her thoughts before she decides to spit them out. “I don’t know how to stop looking for monsters. How do you stop? How do you just… live?”

“I don’t know, Arya. I do it too."

"You don't kill them, though."

"No, I do it so I know who to be careful around. But if I had your training...? Maybe I would."

Arya catches her sister's gaze and holds it. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell Jon? Not ever.”

“You’re my sister. I’ll keep any secret you need me to keep.”

Arya presses her lips together, nodding. Outside the den, the pups climb over one another, their little legs already steadier. 

“I’ve killed people who didn’t deserve to be killed. Not many. Still, though… I was too focused on revenge, I couldn’t see anything else.” She waits for a reaction, for judgment, but Sansa only looks at her calmly. “You were right about the cutter. Alyn. I didn’t know. I suspected. Usually, that’s not good enough. Usually, I investigate properly. I make sure I _know_. Because I don’t want to hurt someone innocent ever again. I don’t. But being back here has been difficult and the feast made it even worse and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. While I was here living the good life, maybe he was out there hurting someone else. So when I saw him? Yeah, he looked suspicious, he did, but I probably would've killed him anyway. I’m scared I would’ve.”

One of the pups waddles a little too close to them. Ghost’s mate grabs him by the scruff of his neck with her teeth and carries him back to his littermates.

“I was lucky,” Arya says. “But what if I’d been wrong? What if he was nothing but a freak who liked a bit of bloodplay. Do you deserve to die over that? Do you deserve to die if you rough someone up once or do you just need a few years in a dungeon cell? Because if you deserve to die, then what do you deserve if you thought a servant girl was an acceptable casualty if it meant you’d be able to rid the world of a horrible man and his horrible sons?”

Again she pauses to let Sansa judge, comment, offer anything at all, but her sister has nothing to offer but sadness in her blue eyes and a silent invitation for Arya to continue if she wants, for no matter what she’ll confess Sansa will listen. No matter what, she’ll do her best to understand. So Arya continues.

“I’ve kept saying I can’t live a normal life knowing there are people out there hurting when I can stop it. That it would be selfish of me. But lately I’ve been wondering… What if that’s just something I tell myself because I’m so used to death, I feel like I can’t exist in a world full of life. As if part of me is forever doomed to walk in the shadows.”

She breathes out a chuckle, rubbing her forehead. “Now I’m the dramatic one.”

Sansa’s brow knits. “What?”

“Nothing.” Arya inhales deeply, exhales slowly through her nose. “I think I need to visit Bran. I think I might need to stay in the valley for a while. Do something else. Away from here. It’s not that I don’t love you and Jon and Iselinde. I just need… I need to be somewhere where I can find myself again without all these memories complicating everything.”

Sansa gives her a kind smile, a mother's smile. “I think that sounds like a good idea, Arya. I know Bran would love to have you.”

“I’ll be back, though.” Arya nods at Sansa’s stomach. “I want to be here when that little wolf cub decides to see the world.”

* * *

When Jon offers to guide them to the valley, Arya declines. Won’t keep him away from his family, she says. Won’t keep him away from the kicking baby in his wife’s belly. He grabs a map instead and draws a path for them. And, before they leave, they send Bran a raven.

It takes them days to ride along the Iselind all the way up to the abandoned cabin sitting in the shadows of the Iron Mountains. A man sits there too. When he sees them approaching, he gets to his feet with a big, friendly smile.

“M’lady,” he says and bows his head. “I’m Ronne. We’ve been expecting you.”

Arya and Tilia dismount their horses and follow Ronne through winding tunnels until dark gives way to light and they step out on the flower-dotted grass of a sun-soaked valley at the end of the world.

* * *

* * *

Playing with her necklace, Sansa stares out their bedchamber window. The first snow of the season whirls in the air, tiny little flakes adding to the whisper-thin blanket covering the cold ground. For days, the world has been still. That quiet of early winter seeping into a North left bare by autumn winds. Her water broke merely an hour ago and yet Jon’s already seen signs of her struggling to bear the pain.

“Where is she?”

“She’ll be here. It’s a long ride, Sansa. It’s probably been snowing up there for weeks too.”

“I can’t believe I’m here again, waiting for another Stark to return from that valley in time for the birth. Next time you all better be here _days_ before--or else.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Jon says with a chuckle, wrapping his arms around her from behind, nose pressed into her shoulder.

Another cramp seizes her. Sansa grabs the window sill with a pained moan.

“Already? They’re coming closely together now.”

“Yes. I think this will be quick."

She's right, his wife. 

She’s seated on the birthing stool, waiting for Kari and Ella to fill the tub with hot water, when their child comes into the world so quickly Jon has to drops to his knees to deliver the warm babe. While the direwolves howl their welcome beneath the midnight moon, Jon then places their child in Sansa’s arm. Their boy. A small, wrinkly, slippery little boy with sparse, dark hair plastered to his little head.

It's only later, when they're back in their bedchamber and the boy lies clean and dry on his mother’s breast, snoozing after his first meal, that Jon notices that the hair only was dark because it was wet and a little bloody.

The fine dusting of hair isn’t dark at all but pale. Jon's stomach tightens into an uncomfortable knot.

He always knew there was a chance, of course. That one of their children would have the look. But, somehow, he assumed it would never happen. He assumed they would all look Stark or Tully or a little bit like both. 

“It’ll grow darker,” Sansa says without him even having voiced his concern. “I know it will.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just do. And Iselinde’s hair changed color--”

“Aye, from black to brown.”

“Rickon was fair as a child. Lots of children are fair when they are little and then their hair darkens. Right, Maester Wolkan?”

“Indeed, Your Grace. It’s very common. And his eyes are brown, just like Lord Jon's. That rarely changes.” Wolkan gives Jon an encouraging smile. “Make sure she eats and drinks, my lord. We’ll let you get some rest.”

“I am starving,” Sansa says once they're alone. “Can you hold him?”

Jon squeezes himself into the bed also occupied by Lamb and Iselinde, who are both fast asleep, and tucks his son into his arms so Sansa can drink bark tea and eat freshly baked bread with butter and ham.

“It’s just hair, Jon,” she says between bites. “It doesn’t mean anything. Even if I'm wrong and he grows up to be fair after all, it doesn’t change how you feel, does it?”

Jon gazes down at his son. At the tiny nose and the tiny mouth and the tiny hand and the tiny foot he felt kicking and kicking in Sansa’s stomach. Having a son of his own in his arms fills Jon’s heart with a love so bright and strong he knows nothing could ever change it. He knows it’s the same kind of love he felt when he first held his daughter. A love that will only grow stronger and stronger with each passing day.

Jon bows his head and noses at his newborn son’s head, breathing in deeply of that scent that is a little bit him and a little bit Sansa and entirely their child.

“He’s perfect,” he murmurs. “Our son is _perfect_.”

* * *

* * *

  
  


When Arya was away, when she was intent on seeing the world and, later, ridding it of evil, thoughts of home brought little but pain, guilt, and regret. She learned to suppress longing, to repress memories. She learned to forget. While in the valley, however, she’s found herself longing not just for the familiar walls of Winterfell and its godswood and the wolves therein, but also for her brother and sister and niece--and for the little prince she’s yet to meet. A little prince who was born last night.

She and Tia had barely ridden through the gates before they heard. But that’s all they’ve heard. The Starks have stayed inside their chamber all day, choosing to spend time with none but one another. They haven't even announced the name.

“You go,” Tilia tells her with a warm smile once they’ve freshened up and changed into clean clothes. “I’ll see them later.”

It’s on light feet Arya runs to Jon and Sansa’s chamber. It’s on the feet of someone who knows that, even though the Queen and her husband want to be left alone with their little family, she will be welcome.

They’re gathered in bed, the whole family, with Lamb curled up by the foot end. She lifts her head and watches Arya come closer. Seeks out her hand for ear scratches.

“You came,” Sansa says, a faint but genuine smile on her face. “We were starting to worry.”

“Of course, I came.”

Arya doesn’t remember when Bran was born. But she has vague memories of how Bran reacted when Rickon came into the world. She remembers the pouts and the tears from a toddler who was no longer the baby in the family and found it entirely unfair that he had been replaced. And so it’s to Iselinde, not the prince, she gives her attention first.

“Hello, sweet girl,” she says. “Remember me?”

Iselinde snuggles closer to her mother, peering at Arya through her wild mop of chestnut curls.

“It’s been a while.” Arya reaches into the satchel hanging from her shoulder. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

“I don’t think you remember her face, sproutling. But you know Arya, don’t you? We talk about her all the time.”

“A-ya?” Iselinde blinks up at her mother.

“Yes. Your aunt Arya.”

“Here.” From the satchel, Arya pulls a doll she and Tilia made together (under a lot of swearing for neither is particularly skilled with the regular kind of needle). “This is for you. To celebrate that you’re a big sister, now.”

Iselinde’s eyes brighten at the gift. “Fank,” she says, cuddling the doll close.

“You're welcome.” Arya smiles. “How does it feel? To be a big sister.” When Iselinde only looks at her, Arya asks, “What’s his name, then? Can you say his name? What’s the baby’s name?”

“Wolf,” Iselinde says. She kisses her baby brother’s downy head. “Lee Wolf.”

“Yes.” Sansa gazes tenderly at her children. “Our little wolf cub. Arya, this is Ulvar Tormund Stark.”

Once upon a time, the sight of this family all cuddled up in bed, the beaming father, the proud but tired mother, the toddler squeezed in between them, and the baby all red and wrinkly in his mother’s arms, would've filled Arya with discomfort. It would’ve been a version of her childhood too twisted, too strange to fill her with that warm glow of nostalgia.

Now, though, she finds it doesn’t make her uncomfortable at all. Seeing Sansa have the love and family she's always wanted--and seeing Jon undoubtedly and irrevocably be a part of the Starks of Winterfell at last, in a way he never could as a child, no matter how much he wanted it--fills Arya with nothing but peace and contentment and a joy that’s just a little bit golden. When Sansa scoots aside to give Arya room in the already crowded bed, she even finds herself joining them without hesitation. 

“Hello, little wolf,” she says, offering Ulvar her finger to hold. “I’m your aunt Arya. Welcome to the pack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reader once asked what made me think of the hwydulvar wyrt. I knew I wanted their first son to be called something relating to wolves without actually naming him Wolf/Wulfe and, since I've used a lot of Nordic names for the stuff in the North, I chose Ulvar. It's is an old Swedish name, and a younger version of the old Norse name Ulfarr which means wolf army. And, because Jon and Sansa needed a reason instead of just pulling that random name out of their butts, I created the orchid. The word ulvar/ulver also literally means wolves in Scandinavian languages (ulv, singular) and hvid/hvit/vit means white so I just changed the spelling. And I changed wort to wyrt because I figured they wouldn't have a word for orchid in the old tongue and would just use something that meant herb/plant lol. I made it easy for myself, what can I say. 
> 
> https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Ulfarr


	37. Epilogue: the Good What Ifs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we've reached the end... Ngl, it's been a bit emotional typing the final words, and changing the ? in chapter number to the final 37. Thank you for joining me on this wild ride. I hope you enjoy the epilogue <3

A small bird with a blue throat stretches his little body, head moving as he searches the world around him for dangers. When a goose sweeps past him in the direction of the tarn, he flutters his wings and lands on a twig that bends slightly beneath his insignificant weight. High up above soars a bird of prey. Some falcon, perhaps. Iselinde squints up at it. Maybe a hawk. Scrunching up her nose, she returns her eyes to the blue-throated bird. It looks so nervous. Too nervous.

On Uncle Bran’s shoulder sits a raven, of course, ready for the picking. He offered it, said it would be all right. That doesn’t feel right, though. In the rookery at home, Wolkan keeps two of the ravens as pets. They got injured once and deliver scrolls no more. But they’re clever things, those birds, talking and all. It doesn’t feel right to share their head even for a moment.

A speckled bird sits on a bit of exposed rock jutting up from the snow-mottled field. Maybe that one. It’s larger than the bluethroat. Closer than the hawk. More discreet than the goose.

“You’ve found the one,” Uncle Bran says. “The golden plover.”

“I think so.”

“Then try.”

Iselinde doesn’t remember the first time she warged into Lamb. She’s done it her whole life; it’s never a struggle. She does remember the first time she tried warging into Shadow, though. Six years old, she’d started to understand what her wolf dreams were and wanted to run with her other best friend. Shadow did not like that. She pushed Iselinde out, bucking and whinnying, her hooves so close to smashing into Iselinde’s head she would’ve been dead had Father not swept her up and gotten her out of harm’s way. 

That scared Iselinde off enough that she’s never tried again. Only ever with Lamb.

Uncle Bran says birds are easier. He’s assured her that, if the bird against all odds becomes aggressive, he’ll warg into it. She’s safe. Her mother and father trust him and so does she.

She wishes they were with her. She wishes she could hold their hands.

Uncle Bran says it’s better that they’re not. 

Iselinde stares into the bird’s eyes, stares and stares and stares--and then something gives way and she’s let in only to be thrown out instantly. The golden plover blinks. Tilts his head this way and that, looking more confused than angry. She huffs out a breath. Tries again. Fails. Tries again. Fails. Tampers down a growl. Tries again. Stare stare stare, in, stay, stay stay…

A whirl of colors slaps her in the face; she flees back into her own body, panting. 

Uncle Bran looks calmly at her. “Did I forget to mention colors look different for a bird?”

“Yes!”

“Suppose it can be a bit overwhelming. But you’ll get used to it. Try again. Allow yourself to become the bird. Push the girl aside--but only for a moment--you have to let her seep back in as you fly. Never lose yourself entirely.”

Iselinde nods, determined, and stitches her eyes to the bird--

* * *

The rock is cool beneath her feet. Raspy. The breeze tickles her feathers. All around her are sounds. Mating calls and warning calls and frogs and insects and reptiles recently woken from their winter slumber. Hunger in her belly. She picks at the thawing ground. Finds something yummy. She is a bird, only a bird, and she takes flight, her wings beating.

A pale wolf lies below, watching a man and a boy dance on a sunny stretch of field free from snow. They hold sticks and something leaf-like only large and made from wood. They look the same as the whirl over the grass, as they spin and duck and whack. One a fair bit smaller than the other, yes, but still the same. The boy evades a blow, loses his balance, falls on his behind. Smiling, the man pulls him back to his feet and ruffles his dark hair. She can’t hear his words but knows in her heart they’re kind words. Encouraging words. Then they’re at it again, falling back into a dance she sometimes dances herself. Those words are said to her, then.

 _“Keep your shield up, sweet girl”_ \--a big warm hand cupping her cheek--” _or I'll ring your head like a bell. Now, keep at it. You’re doing well.”_

Behind them sits a great big thing of stone. A house. Where humans live. Atop the house sits another child, the hair as brilliant as a berry, as brilliant as a flame. The child laughs. Another is climbing up. Not a child. A woman, her black braid dangling like a rope down her back. Another stands on the ground, older, hair closer to stone than berry, and next to her sits a big wolf about as tall as the woman. She gazes up with her hand shadowing her face from the sun.

“Joarr Samwell Stark! Come down before your mother sees you and has a fright!”

The child--Joarr--only grins and clambers on across the roof, even squeals out his laughter when the climbing woman catches up with him. She hugs him close before coaxing him back down to the ground like she’s done so many times before, the bird knows. The girl knows. The girl.

The bird in her still wants to taste his hair. It wants to pick a lock and decorate its nest, attract a mate. 

She flies down and lands on the boy’s head--her brother’s head--and the perpetually moving Joarr goes entirely still for once. She can’t see his face and yet she knows his exact expression, how those big brown eyes cross as he tries to look up at the bird perched on his head. The wolf stares at her. The bird in her is afraid of it, but the girl in her knows they’re old friends. She pecks at her brother’s hair, can’t help herself, just a lock. Joarr howls; Fang springs to his paws. She takes off again, soars up into the sky, shoots across the blue expanse. 

Below glitters something even bluer. Something blue and green and golden and other colors neither girl nor bird has names for, she only knows she can’t resist that either. How it sparkles. She swoops down down down. Lands at the water’s edge. Drinks of the cold water. Struts around on the damp ground among grass and moss. Eats worms and bugs and other yummy things. Lets more of herself seep back in as she struts closer to the little sister splashing around at the shore. 

Springs are warm in the valley in some sort of impossible, magical way. Even this early on when small heaps of snow still litters the ground and the water is cold enough to remind you it was only just covered with ice. Sindra, however, doesn’t care. She sloshes into the tarn, water splashing up on her boots and knee-length skirts and the wool stockings beneath. The sunlight paints indescribable colors in hair as flame-red as Joarr’s hair, as Mother’s hair.

(Iselinde suppresses the need to peck at those locks too.)

Sindra puts a bark boat with a green birch-leaf as its sail on the surface and pushes it out into the tarn. Fox comes out of nowhere, bites at the back of her dress, and tugs her back to land. Sindra only giggles, hugs the giant wolf, picks up another bark boat, and wades back into the water. She’s the fish, Mother always says, for she already swims as well as one.

Still, Mother and Aunt Arya are there too, keeping a watchful eye on Sindra from a bench built by Father and draped with furs to keep them warm. They’re talking about something too in hushed voices, a raven scroll in Arya’s hand.

Casually, Iselinde trots closer to them. Closer to murmuring words about _wildling children_ and _Tormund_ and _The Talon_ \--

Mother’s eyes land on the very inconspicuous bird. Then they narrow. “Sproutling, is that you?”

The perhaps not quite so inconspicuous bird stills.

“Iselinde, spying on people--”

* * *

Iselinde rushes back into her own body. The world around her changes, the magnificent display of light and color dulling and the noises sharpening. Her knees feel weak, head a bit dizzy. She grabs the backrest of Uncle Bran’s wheelchair to support herself.

“Welcome back,” he says. “You were gone for a while. How was it?”

“Mother caught me. How did she know?”

“She knows you’re starting your training today. If she noticed a bird coming closer, why wouldn’t that be her assumption?”

“Or,” Iselinde says, “she said that to any bird she saw in hopes of one of them being me. So she’d look clever.”

She grins at her own joke, pleased when she notices that Uncle Bran allows himself a rare almost-there smile too.

“Would you like to try again?” he says.

Her eyes follow a spider spinning a web between two wilted flowers of yesteryear. “Can I warg into a spider? Or a hare? Or a fish!”

“The easiest is a pet. Someone with whom you have a bond. Birds are easy too, practical, but most wild animals are difficult. Hares, mice, deer--too nervous. Insects? Too incompatible.”

“What about people? Can you warg into people?”

Uncle Bran holds his eyes on her for a beat. “Would you like to?”

Iselinde thinks about Wolkan’s ravens, so clever. They ask for corn, they greet her with her name when she enters the rookery, they say _rain_ before the first drop falls and _snow_ before the first flake dances. She thinks about Shadow, her hooves glinting like steel. She imagines someone else forcing their way into her head and controlling her actions. She’d want to kick them too.

“No,” she says, “I don’t think so. That wouldn’t be right.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Uncle Bran lays a hand on her arm. He never touches her, doesn’t even hug her and her siblings when they visit or when they leave. She gives him her full attention. “It would be a violation. You need to understand that. It’s important.”

“Have you ever done it?”

Uncle Bran brings his hand back to his lap. “I thought it necessary at the time. I was a child. I didn’t have someone to teach me the way. But you do.”

“I won’t do it, Uncle Bran. I swear it.”

That too earns her an almost-smile. “I believe you. Now”--he nods up at the bird of prey still circling above--”choose the rough-legged hawk. Predators are better. Go on. Fly up to the temple, get a weirwood leaf from the godswood, and return to me.”

Iselinde tips her head back and looks at it, its silhouette black against the blue sky. 

It took many months for her and Shadow to become friends again.

“But what about the animals?” she says. “Is that not a violation too?”

Uncle Bran is quiet for a moment. “If it resists, let it go. Pick another animal. Find one who lets you in. It’s a good skill to have, warging into other animals than just the ones you’re bonded with. It might save you or someone else one day.”

Mother and Father often tell stories. Aunt Ayra does too. The older Iselinde has gotten, the more she’s realized that some of them are inspired by the lives of a family that once was shattered by war and enemies and horrors. A family who fought through all the seven hells to find their way back to one another again. What could’ve changed had they all been able to do this? If she, one day, can save herself or one of her siblings thanks to this ability, then perhaps… 

Whispering an apology into the wind, she sets her eyes on the hawk and focuses.

* * *

  
  


“Do you ever have dreams, Iselinde?” Uncle Bran asks once they’re done and she pushes his chair down the stone-paved path toward the small village at the foot of the slope leading up to his temple. “Green dreams. Do you ever have dreams that come true?”

“I don’t have green eyes, Uncle.”

“That’s a myth. My eyes are brown.” He points at them with the weirwood leaf she got him. “Your mother’s eyes are blue.”

“My mother is not a greenseer.”

“She has a touch of it--as do you. You won’t ever be a strong warg or a strong greenseer, but you still are both those things. You can still use that to the best of your ability. You dreamed of Joarr, didn’t you? You dreamed of him before he was born.”

She was four and a half when Joarr was born. Time has faded the memory, but she’s heard the story many times. She kept saying Mother carried a fish in her belly. _A fish a fish a fish!_ And they all laughed for, yes, of course it would be a fish. Mother was half Tully. It was a fish and a wolf--and a foal too, for it kicked like one. Then, a few days before Mother’s thirtieth nameday when they celebrated at Joardiswater like they always do, Joarr came in a haste. With Father’s help, she gave birth in the water while Kari rode off to Winterfell to get Maester Wolkan, and the aunties minded Iselinde and Ulvar.

As faded as that memory is, though, Iselinde will never forget Mother’s face when she said, “She was right. It _was_ a fish.” She’ll never forget how Mother and Father laughed, standing there knee-deep in water, all wet and messy, cradling Joarr together while Iselinde and Ulvar sat on the shore and watched, half fascinated, half terrified.

She’ll never ever forget the cord that still linked mother and babe. _Gross_ . That day she vowed to herself she’d _never_ have children. Her resolve only strengthened when Sindra was born.

She changed her mind a few months ago.

Maron Martell is _beautiful_ and so tall--almost as tall as Squirrel. Maron, Mors, and their father attended her eleventh nameday celebration. It was the first time they’d visited since they were all little and Maron seemed almost a man grown to her, all courtesy and dashing smiles as he asked her to dance. Iselinde fell _wildly_ in love. Once they’d left she asked Mother how one knows whom to marry. How she knew Father was the one for her, for Iselinde wants nothing more than to have a marriage as happy as her parents’ marriage. Mother caressed her hair and smiled and said, “Your father is the best man I know. He makes me very, very happy. And when I look at him, I feel it. Deep in my heart. But you needn’t worry about this yet, sproutling. Not for many years to come.”

Father is the best man Iselinde knows too. No one could ever compare. But Maron Martell has black hair and amber eyes and fills her belly with butterflies. They’d make beautiful babies. Everyone says so.

She dreams of him, sometimes. But it doesn’t feel like a green dream. Just her heart’s wish.

“Those dreams,” she says, now. “Dreams like that. I rarely have them.”

“Rarely isn’t never. Has it happened lately?”

There has been a recurring dream. A strange one. She tells Uncle Bran of others dreams too, squeezing the strange one in there, just to test him. Just to see whether he can really honestly tell.

“The one about the snow bear cubs,” he says, because of course he could tell. “Tell me more about that one.”

It’s always the same. She’s a presence hovering in the sky, almost like a bird watching the world. Watching a creature snatch cubs who play in the snow. The creature brings them to an ice floe and then they float away, together, the cubs terrified, the creature grinning. He’s like a man and yet not. Leather spans between his arms and back like the wings of a bat. It acts as a sail, filling with wind and pushing them south. Once they reach warmer waters, the ice floe starts melting--but before they all go down, another batlike creature scoops them all up. He’s grinning too, an evil grin, a cruel grin. He’s not a savior. And then she wakes.

“Tell your Aunt Arya.” Uncle Bran looks as troubled as Uncle Bran can look. “Go now. Someone else will take me the rest of the way.”

* * *

* * *

Sansa dries Sindra’s cold hands and rubs warmth back into them before helping her daughter into a pair of woolly mittens. She never seems to notice it much, though, the cold. Heat, however… Both Sindra and Ulvar avoid the hot pools as if they’re scalding.

The walk back to the house Bran had built for them years and years ago is a short one and yet Sindra already hangs on her arm. Next month, she’ll be four. She still takes naps--especially when they visit the valley. There’s so much to see and do she has to rest in the afternoon or she’ll be so overwhelmed she becomes a handful who’s forgotten how to fall asleep in the evening. Sansa carries her the last bit.

Outside, Joarr and Fang play catch with Tia and the chestnut-colored wolves, Poppy and Weasel. Kari sits on a log stool by the stoop, flushed as always when she’s around the wildest Stark. She’s more of a nursemaid now, Kari. When Jon and Sansa discussed hiring one some years back, she looked positively offended and suggested rather firmly that, perhaps, the Queen should hire herself a new _handmaiden_ so that Kari could put all her time into minding the children.

“Mama!” Joarr flings the stick in the air and barrels into her, clings to her leg. “Mama, a bird tried to eat my brain!”

“Let me guess: it was speckled.”

“I don’t know. I just know it was big. A monster, really. It tried to eat my brain!”

“How could it eat something that doesn’t exist?” A smirking Iselinde walks closer, her horse’s reins in her hand.

Joarr sticks his freckled nose in the air. “Maester Wolkan says if you don’t have a brain, you die. And I’m alive. Just look!” He spreads out his arms as if to prove the fact.

“For now,” Iselinde says. “But if you keep climbing--”

“Iselinde,” Sansa says, softly chiding. Then she hands Sindra to Arya and kneels by Joarr. “Were you on the roof today?”

He toes the ground, looking up at her from under his wild hair. “Maybe?”

“It’s dangerous. You know Uncle Bran fell, don’t you? And he was _lucky_. It could’ve gone much worse.” She cups his cheek. “What would I do without my little foal?”

“I’m sorry, Mother.” He gives her his best puppy dog eyes. “If I got a horse for my nameday, I wouldn’t climb as much. Or ever again. I promise.”

Sansa stifles a laugh at her clever boy. “We’ll see. I’ll discuss it with your father.”

Jon’s in the paddock next to the house with Ulvar, readying their horses. They’re flushed too, cheeks ruddy and eyes brightened by refreshing spring weather and their sparring. 

They are so alike, those two. Short, dark, quiet.

Jon isn’t quite as dark anymore, though; his hair is sprinkled with gray. This morning, when they woke to bird song and sunlight shining in through the window, she counted the strands just to tease him--and, when he pouted so adorably, assured him it only makes him more handsome.

It’s true. She wouldn’t call it distinguished. It’s more of a rugged appeal. He more than ever looks like a man who could carry her to bed and have his way with her until she collapses with pleasure. And when he’s with the horses… Sansa watches those large hands soothe the mare. Even after all these years, she still wants to grab him and pull him somewhere private whenever she sees him handling horses. Or building things. Or sparring--

“Close your mouth,” Arya says, “you’re drooling.” She hands her Sindra, whose wide-set blue eyes are drooping. “Hey, Jon. I think your wife wants a kiss.”

Jon perks up at that, leading Shadow with him as he walks to the gate with a smile on his face. He cups Sansa’s chin and kisses her over the fence. Then he says, “And one for my little girl,” and kisses Sindra’s hair too.

“I hope you won’t be gone long,” Sansa says.

“An hour at most.”

“Take Joarr with you, or he’ll drive poor Kari up the wall.”

“It’s _Tia_ he’ll drive up the wall, more likely,” Arya mutters, but she does so with affection.

Joarr practically jumps up and down. “Can I take Iselinde’s horse? Please, Father, _please_.”

“No. You’re with me.” Jon scoops him up. “Up you get.”

Once Joarr sits on Shadow, Jon kisses Sansa again, just a quick peck on the lips, before he mounts the horse too.

They always kiss before they part. Always. No matter whether he leaves for White Harbor on business for a few days or rides across a meadow for an hour with their sons. And they never fall asleep angry with one another. Never.

Things happen so easily.

Davos died in his sleep two years ago. Everyone believed him fit as a fiddle--the maesters too--and yet he went to bed, fell asleep, and never woke up. Granted, he was well into his seventies, but still…

Wolkan is in his seventies too. Her stomach always twists when she thinks about it, can’t imagine herself with another maester, prays to the gods after all that he’ll remain healthy and sharp for two decades more at least.

(Sometimes they do listen.)

Sindra is half asleep already when Sansa carries her into the bedchamber her daughters share when they visit the valley, and lays her down on the bed. Sindra’s hair spills out over the pillow, red like Sansa’s, curly like Jon’s. They all have curly hair, except Ulvar whose dark locks fall in faint waves around his long face. Sindra clutches her favorite doll to her chest, the one Iselinde once was given by her aunts and she gave in return to Sindra the day she was born. An offering she’d said, apparently. As if the newborn babe was in control of Sansa’s fate.

“Mama,” Sindra murmurs. “Sing?”

“Of course, starshine.”

“The one about papa.”

For once none of them was behind it--not even Sam. Over the years, Jon Stark has established himself as an important figure in the North. Not only is he a constant by the Queen’s side or a successful horse breeder who even sells horses to the colder parts of Essos, but he’s also supplied horses for free to struggling families throughout Westeros and that made him more well-loved than anything else.

Now the bards sing of a man who once chose the realm over a vow he made to a queen of his own blood. A man who rejected a heritage tainted by ashes and death. A man who wanted what was best for the people instead of what was best for him.

Jon hates the song. If it’s played or sung in his presence, he leaves. It conjures too many painful memories and brings back nightmares he’s fought too hard to rid himself of, but Sansa knows he’s flattered too. She knows it’s left him a little bit lighter.

Children are named Jon again. They know five boys with that name, personally, and know of even more. Granted, one of them is Jon Arryn, named for the boy’s grandfather, but even so… 

Jon’s heritage might’ve been tainted by ashes and death, but Jon himself is not.

* * *

At the kitchen table, with three steaming cups of tea before them, sit Arya and Iselinde. Whatever they’re discussing has Arya hanging onto every word. Sansa settles down too, wraps her hands around the cup ostensibly poured for her, and sips as she listens. Iselinde talks about snow bear cubs. A green dream about children of the true North stolen and shipped south--not that Iselinde seems to realize that, thankfully. Arya does, though. The moment Iselinde is done, she excuses herself to ride up to Bran.

“Should I be worried too?” Iselinde says.

Sansa shakes her head. “This is about Arya’s work, sproutling. You needn’t worry.”

“What’s the Talon?” When Sansa raises her eyebrows, her daughter adds: “I didn’t mean to spy, Mother, and I’m sorry, but… I can’t exactly unhear it, can I?”

Sansa hides a smile behind the tea cup. A blend created by Tia. She and Arya stay up here half the year. They have a glass garden of their own (that cost a small fortune, but Sansa and Jon paid for it as a belated wedding gift) where Tia and Arya grow herbs and flowers and vegetables tended to by Mossroot when they’re away. They have chickens too. Three cats. And Poppy and Weasel who follow them when they ride all over the North (and other places too) to do their work. So far, they’ve managed to hide from the children what that work is. But the children are getting older--and Iselinde will be queen one day.

They had her attend her first execution last summer. Ten years old. Too old to pipe up “and a half!” any longer. Too young to watch a man die. (Young enough to sleep in her parents’ bed that night for the first time in years.) They would’ve gladly kept her from it longer still, but people had started talking. “Lord Eddard Stark brought his sons once they turned eight,” the whispers went. Was the princess Iselinde perhaps a delicate winter rose? This girl who had attended petitions and council meetings and tailed after her mother since she was a mere babe. Ten years old--almost a woman grown--and too weak and meek and delicate to do her duty. Would her brother Ulvar perhaps be a better ruler?

It was a difficult decision to make--but then most are, Sansa has found, when it comes to protecting her children without overprotecting them. And with Iselinde it’s even harder for Sansa isn’t merely raising a daughter but a queen too. Someone who must be prepared to take over if something ever happens to Sansa. 

Things happen so easily.

At fourteen, Sansa was an orphan wed to an enemy of her family. She learned how dirty the world was not from calm and supportive conversations with her mother and father but because she was thrown into it, like Tia when a captain threw her into the cold Braavosi waters and told her to sink or swim.

But even in peace time...

Gullis died after giving birth to Squirrel. Trask was taken by a lizard-lion when his and Meera’s daughter was only a few months old. Gendry’s wife died three years ago from a chest cold that would not end, and Yohn Royce succumbed to some heart disease shortly after. Sam gave them a fright last year when he slipped on a patch of ice, hit his head, and lay unconscious for two days. Tormund scared them anew a few months after that when he drunkenly fell asleep outside and would’ve frozen to death had a guard not found him. All he lost was two fingers rather than his life. And Sansa herself…

Peace is no guarantee for a long life.

Sansa will protect Iselinde, yes. She’ll protect all her children, tooth and claw, like the wolf mother she is. But she won’t coddle them. That does them no favors.

“The Talon is a brothel,” she says. “At Eastwatch. Do you know what a brothel is?”

Iselinde nods, her cheeks pink. “I’ve heard servants talk. It’s a place where men can give women gold to please them for a while.”

“Women. And sometimes men. But in some brothels, people can buy children. Children who have been stolen from their parents or off the streets and are forced to work.”

Iselinde’s round gray eyes grow even rounder. “What do they do?”

“Unpleasant things. Things no child should ever be forced to do. It’s not legal. The bad men, what they do, it’s a capital offense. Punishable by death. Your aunts are a sort of warden of children of the North. They inspect brothels, they investigate rumors of… unpleasant things. They return children to their families or find them new homes. And, sometimes, when those children need _a lot_ of help because of how they have been mistreated, they bring them here to Uncle Bran. They bring them here to heal.”

Iselinde chews on that for a moment, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in a way that reminds Sansa so much of Arya when she was little.

“The snow bear cubs,” she says. “They were stolen. In my dream.”

“Tormund sent a raven here this morning. There are rumors of children disappearing. Wildling children. He wanted Arya to investigate and--”

“But Uncle Bran can see. He can tell them.”

“The Three-Eyed Raven has rules he must follow. He’s not allowed to interfere in that way. I know it doesn’t sound fair--and in all honesty, I’m not sure I believe it is fair, either, but I’m not the Three-Eyed Raven. I haven’t gone through what Bran has gone through. If he says he’s not allowed, then I have to respect that. But”--she leans in closer, smiling at her eldest daughter--”Aunt Arya is the best there is. She will find those children and she will bring them home. I promise.”

“And she will make those men pay for their crimes?”

“Yes. We ensure justice is served together and, one day, that will be your duty.”

Iselinde sits straighter in her chair. “I understand, Mother. I will do my duty.”

“I know you will.”

Sansa scoots her chair closer just so she can pull her daughter in for a hug. Her hair smells of spring, all fresh air and sunlight. Sansa releases her sooner than she’d like. No matter how much she’d love for her little girl to stay little, she’s growing up and no longer wants to cuddle the way her siblings do.

“We need to start supper,” she says, smiling at her daughter who’s already finding the aprons.

Iselinde is growing up and Sansa has to let her.

* * *

* * *

The first time Jon saw this house, it was only a foundation whose purpose he didn't know. Now, thanks to the efforts of men and giants, it’s a large stone house with four bedchambers, a spacious kitchen, a dining chamber, a small office, a washroom, and even a privy. 

They usually come here in the summer, a few weeks after Sansa’s nameday. Even though the Kingsroad has been extended and now runs a far bit into the true North, rather than take a comfortable wheelhouse, they ride here, hunt to make the provisions last, and sleep by a campfire beneath the open sky. They don’t even bring guards, to the chagrin of Sansa’s advisers who keep telling her they really ought to be better protected. They are, though. Protected. They have their wolves; the only servant they bring is Kari.

This year, he suggested they welcome spring up here. Summer will be busy. At the end of spring, they’ll celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary with a week-long festival. Then comes Sansa’s nameday. After that they’ll travel to the Reach to attend the wedding of Lady Rosie Risley and Little Sam, who’s no longer little at all but a nineteen year old man towering over his parents. He’s taking after the late Dickon, friends of House Tarly say. So tall and fair. Sam and Gilly just smile and keep their secret. Then, while the Tarlys bring their new daughter back north, to Deep Lake, the Starks will travel east for another wedding (Gendry has found himself a new bride) and after that they’re invited to Mara Martell’s fifteenth nameday feast. An invitation they would’ve declined had Iselinde not shone with excitement when she read it. 

Jon’s already exhausted by even the _thought_ of all that traveling and socializing, but Sansa has promised they’ll stay at home for all of next year. And, he must admit, he has a hard time saying no to his children. No matter how many times he tells himself he needs to be more stern.

“Ready for dessert?” Iselinde beams at him.

Jon leans back in his chair with a content hum. The bowl before him is scraped clean of the reindeer stew he grew so fond of during his time spent here (and refuses to eat at home, even though Bran has offered to give their cooks the recipe and send them some salted reindeer meat). “It’s part of the charm,” he told his little brother. “That we only ever eat it here.” It wouldn’t taste as good at home.

“Aye,” he says now, loosening the laces of his breeches just a little (and grinning at Sansa when she notices with a fond head-shake). “Suppose I can make room for dessert.”

“You sit, papa.” Iselinde kisses his cheek. “And you too, Mother. We’ll take care of it.”

Iselinde gestures at her siblings to help in clearing the table and bringing out dessert. Once that’s eaten too, they take care of the dishes as well. Sindra carries the utensils to the kitchen one by one, as if the chore requires the utmost care, while Joarr tries stacking plates into such a tall tower Kari shoots to her feet to stop him before everything crashes to the floor.

Jon and Sansa exchange a smile across the table. It’s good for them, the children. To learn how to do things themselves--and they enjoy it too. They enjoy washing their clothes in the stream and baking oat cakes and catching their supper in the tarn and cooking it too, either in the kitchen or over an open fire outside. They always bicker less in the valley and make their chores into a game.

Kari sometimes mutters over that. How spoiled they all are. How this wouldn’t seem so quaint to them were they forced to do it every day, year after year. But she does so fondly--and Jon can hardly claim she’s wrong. His children _are_ spoiled. But both he and Sansa are always making sure that, if something happens, if they’re all unlucky, their children will know how to hunt, fish, make a campfire, build a shelter, cook, clean, and wash and mend and make their clothes. They know how to fight too. Iselinde trains several times per week; Ulvar’s a natural; and Jon has even started sparring a little with Joarr just to deplete some of his almost endless supply of energy. He doesn’t possess his brother’s natural grace or his sister’s sturdy strength, but no one can accuse him of not giving his all. As soon as Sindra grows a little taller, she’ll start too.

If something happens to Jon and Sansa, they’ll be able to take care of themselves. Protect themselves--and each other.

Things happen so easily.

An impressive title is no guarantee that they’ll be protected. Jon, Sansa, Arya, and Bran know that all too well.

They returned in time for supper, Arya and Tilia, and they brought Bran with them. Together with the children and Kari and the wolves, they’re now arranging furs and cushions and blankets outside. They build a campfire too and light lanterns.

Jon watches them from the kitchen window. He’s supposed to carry outside the tray of tea and cups, but he got stuck here, watching his family chatter and laugh as they work. Watching them get distracted for Joarr dances around the campfire in steps inspired by Tormund’s wild dancing he admired so at his older sister’s nameday celebration, just to make them all giggle, while Sindra sings and claps her hands.

Sansa hugs Jon from behind and rests her chin on his shoulder. “What are we supposed to do with that child. He climbed up on the roof again today.”

“Maybe I could build him something… Something safer to climb. I need to think about it.”

"He wants a horse."

"Well," Jon says, "he _is_ tall enough for it."

Sometimes he laughs at that. How their little foal is as tall as Ulvar already, all coltish with his wild energy and long limbs.

Sansa hums. “They’ve grown so fast. I can’t believe Sindra is almost four. Sometimes I miss having a little baby.”

Jon stiffens. “You’re not suggesting--”

“No.” She keeps her arms around him when he turns around. “We agreed. No more. I can’t help but long for another one, though.

“Sansa,” he says, cupping the side of her neck, thumb stroking her jawline.

“I’m not suggesting. I’m not. It’s not a painful longing. Besides, give it eight to ten years and we’ll have grandchildren.”

She says it in a lighthearted way, meant to make him smile, but he can’t smile. He can only look deeply into her eyes and hold her closer with one arm wrapped around her waist. Anchor her to him. Show fate or the gods or whoever decides those things that they can’t take her away from him.

“I can’t lose you,” he says, voice hoarse. “I can’t.”

“I wasn’t suggesting,” she whispers. “You won’t lose--”

He crashes his lips to hers, kissing her with a desperate passion.

He almost did. Lose her. Sindra’s birth was difficult. The way Sansa bled… She was whiter than the linen, whiter than snow, whiter than death. She wouldn’t live, Wolkan said. Not without blood--but he couldn’t promise even that would help. Sometimes blood didn’t and no one knew why. Jon offered his. Prayed to gods he stopped believing in a lifetime ago while seeing images in his mind Bran once put there. when he in too much detail described Jon’s birth to him, described blood-soaked sheets and a sister dying in her brother’s arms, described a nightmare. So Jon prayed. He prayed and he bled and he cried--and Sansa lived.

He keeps kissing her and kissing her, almost to remind himself of the fact; she kisses him back as desperately, already tugging on his clothes. He moves her away from the window, toward their bedchamber.

“We’ll be careful,” she whispers into his ear. “Tell me when you’re close and I’ll take you in my mouth.”

Jon shudders with anticipation, closing the door behind them. 

“We can even do it the old way, if you want,” she says, pushing his shirt off his shoulders. “It can be my gift.”

Jon stops. She never offers. He’s always the one asking--and almost exclusively when he’s drunk. 

“Thought you gave me my gift this morning,” he says--and she did. She pleasured him so thoroughly he fell back asleep with a groggy smile and slept an hour more, spent.

“Don’t you want another gift?”

“Aye,” he breathes against her lips.

She turns her head before he can kiss her. Slips into the mask she once used to wear around him to protect herself. Pushes him closer to the bed and orders him to take off his breeches. It’s been a while since they did it this way, the old way, when the distance between them left him frustrated, angry, ashamed. Aroused. So fucking aroused by the way she would almost disdainfully take her pleasure from him as if his cock were the only thing she wanted. Back when she refused to kiss him and still wanted him so badly he could barely roll up his sleeves without her looking at him as if she wanted to devour him. It thrilled him then, despite it all, and it thrills him now too. He comes a little harder, when she rides him like that, uses him like that, denies him her kisses like that. 

The rest of it is different, though. Once they’ve both peaked, she doesn’t move away from him, the distance between them doesn’t grow farther still, their chests don’t feel hollow. No, she settles in his lap and winds her fingers through his hair and kisses him and kisses him with a mouth that tastes salty of him, that tastes of an intimacy he’s never shared (and never will share) with anyone else. 

She murmurs to him that she loves him over and over. It still makes him a little bit dizzy to hear it. (He thinks it’s the best part.)

Sansa nuzzles his nose. “I used to wonder whether we’d ever grow tired of one another.”

“What? Why?”

“Lovers do, don’t they? Eventually. But we’ve been married ten years soon and I still can’t get enough of you. I really can’t.”

“Let’s hope I don’t get a little problem in the future, then.”

“ _Jon_ ,” she murmurs, leaning into him. “It’s _you_ I want. Your cock is just a very lovely benefit.”

Jon grins, squeezing her hips. “I take it that means I make you moderately happy?”

She pulls back and looks at him, bemused, her hair wild around her flushed face, tousled by his fingers.

“You told me that once,” he says. “That it was a shame I hadn’t settled down, because I’d make some woman moderately happy one day.”

“Oh.” She tilts her head, nonchalant, and hums thoughtfully. “You’re all right.”

Jon growls and attacks her side with quick, tickling fingers. Sansa lets out the high-pitched giggles of a young girl. 

“ _Shh._ You’ll attract them.”

“We should head out, anyway,” she says, still laughing. “Before they start wondering.”

She kisses him one last time. Then they clean themselves up, dress, get the tea, and head outside. The campfire crackles cozily. Arya feigns an admonishing look, shaking her head; Jon grins at her before sitting down with his wife next to him. Bran sits in his chair, one of Arya and Tia’s cats in his lap. The other two cats lie atop Poppy while Weasel has draped himself over Arya’s and Tia’s laps. Tomorrow they’ll leave to find the missing children. Tormund is gathering a group of men and women to help them; they’re all to meet at Jon’s old cabin, which he finished building several summers ago.

Tonight, though, they’re celebrating together, all the Starks.

“How about a story while we wait,” Bran says.

The children cheer, throwing out different suggestions. Sindra always wants to hear Sindra’s Spire (which is always met with boos for everyone finds it incredibly dull). Joarr loves Wulfe the Hunter or anything adventurous. Ulvar just shrugs and says any story will be fine, nose in a book he reads by lantern light, only one ear on the conversation. Iselinde prefers either love stories or something bloody and scary.

“I want to hear about the Seafaring Girl,” she says, cuddled up with Lamb close to the campfire.

Arya doesn’t cry anymore when she tells it. She’s even embellished it and made it more exciting and triumphant in a way that isn’t quite as bloody as the truth (or as scary as the tales Old Nan used to tell). It seems to help her too, telling it, the way it’s helped Jon and Sansa to turn their horrible memories into stories. And the children love it. They often play the Seafaring Girl in the godswood, where the pavilion becomes a ship and the godswood the ocean and the faraway lands. Now, as Arya starts talking, Ulvar even puts his book aside and pays attention, one hand absent-mindedly running through Shy’s fur.

He’s only nine. But give it a few years and looking at him and the snow-white Shy will be like staring at the past. The biggest difference is that Ulvar’s hair is straighter.

Not once has Sansa said, “I told you so.” Not once has Jon said how relieved he is over her being right nor how much he worried the first few years of Ulvar’s life when he stayed silver blond. Then, around the age of five, Ulvar’s hair started darkening. By the age of seven it was almost as dark as Jon’s hair.

Jon exhaled his relief then. He exhaled his relief too when Joarr was born and had his mother’s hair and his father’s eyes, and when Sindra turned out to look entirely Tully. He exhaled his relief when both Ulvar and Sindra showed a clear preference for cold over heat and screamed bloody murder if the bath water was even a touch warmer than tepid. He exhaled his relief when six years old Iselinde insisted on baking lemon cakes herself (with help, of course) for her mother’s nameday and burned her little fingers. And he exhaled his relief when Little Jon, Sam’s youngest and the most mischievous child Jon’s ever met besides Little Jon’s twin sister Tansy who is, impossibly, even worse, convinced Joarr to try and juggle torches, and Joarr ended up with singed hair and a burn mark on his ear. Aye, Jon comforted his children when they hurt themselves and he helped them soothe the burns with salves, but he was also grateful that they _could_ get burned. So grateful and so endlessly relieved.

He’s carried around worries in his heart along with the boundless love he feels for his family. Worry that hair will stay fair, that skin will stay unscathed by heat and fire, that tempers will run too hot, too mercurial, that impulses will be cruel and selfish. Something beyond what’s normal for children who are testing boundaries and learning who they are and the rules of the world in which they live. Those worries might be soothed for now, but he knows they’ll return when they have those grandchildren Sansa spoke of. Though, he also knows he’ll love them fiercely--and make them _feel_ loved too--even if they’re fair-haired and purple-eyed.

Just as he would’ve kept loving Ulvar had his hair stayed silver.

Sindra yawns and rubs her eyes. “Is it time soon?”

“Come, starshine.” Sansa holds out her arms. “Sit with mama for a bit.”

When Sindra clambers over to Sansa’s lap, Fox pads to Shy and Ulvar, and curls up with them. Jon thinks her belly is a little rounder. Shy has been more protective of her too. 

That’s another worry Jon carries. Ghost’s mate has had three litters. The first has stayed with the Starks. Out of the second, the two chestnut wolves have followed Arya and Tia while the sand-colored one sadly disappeared. They still don’t know whether he died or was driven off or chose to leave. The third litter is about six years old and takes after their mother in coloring, all four of them, and always stay in Winterfell and the surrounding area. Ghost and his mate never had more litters after that.

He’s old now, Ghost. Prefers lying in front of the hearth. Never leaves Winterfell anymore--not even for the wolfswood. And if Fox is pregnant… 

Jon pushes those thoughts aside. Ghost has many years left. He’s only retiring as alpha, like Sansa will one day step down as queen and let Iselinde rule and Jon will hand over Longclaw to his daughter. Strangely, Jon is already longing for it, longing to grow old and plump with Sansa, and spend their days playing with (and spoiling) their grandchildren. Ulvar will probably take over the farm; none of the others is as good with (or as interested in) horses. And while he’s a natural with the sword, he’s the kind of boy who picks up snails from the Kingsroad and places them back in the grass before they get crushed beneath a foot or hoof. He catches flies and moths trapped indoors so he can release them rather than kill them. What Joarr and Sindra will do remains to be seen, but Jon has hopes at least one of them will study at Deep Lake. Arya hopes one of them will want to help her and Tilia. Jon can’t say he agrees, but he won’t stop them either, if that’s what they want to do. As heartbreaking as it is, the world will keep producing awful men; their work is never-ending.

Sindra heaves an adorable little sigh. “When will they come?”

“Soon, starshine.”

“Are you quite sure they’ll come tonight, Uncle Bran?”

“Yes,” Bran says, eyes on the sky. “I’m quite sure.”

“Have I seen them before?”

Sansa strokes her hair. “When you were little. I don’t think you remember it, though. You were only two.”

Sindra nods, staring up at the sky too. “Well, I’m ready now. To see it again. You can shine now, light.”

As if the sky heard her, it starts painting colors across the starry expanse. Emerald fills the space between horizon and sky dome first, and then flames of green and blue with hints of purple flicker across the dark canvas.

“Thank you!” Sindra calls out. Then she looks up at her mother, blue eyes gleaming in the light shining down from above. “It listened to me.”

“Yes, it did.”

“Aye,” Jon says, “that was definitely not a coincidence.”

Sansa elbows him in the side, but she’s fighting a grin and Jon just laughs. From somewhere to the east, farther up in the valley, singing flows out over the world. The Children of the Forest weaving notes as spectacular and otherworldly and breathlessly beautiful as the display above, as if the light itself sung the world a lullaby.

Sansa looks up at the sky in awe. Jon looks at her. When she turns her head to meet his gaze, her eyes glitter with tears and he loves her more than he ever thought possible.

“Happy fortieth nameday, my love,” she whispers.

He kisses her lips, her nose, her cheek, her lips again. When he pulls away, a smile curves her mouth and it takes her a moment to flutter her eyes open. As if he still makes her a little bit dizzy too.

“I can’t get enough of you either,” he murmurs, just for her ears, and steals himself another quick kiss from her smiling lips.

With a content sigh, he wraps an arm around her and tugs her and Sindra close. Sansa settles in with a content sigh of her own, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Someone nudges his other arm. Little Joarr wanting a cuddle too. Jon makes room for him on his lap. Behind him, Bran hums along softly to the Children’s singing. Next to him Arya and Tilia snuggle with their wolves. In front of him sits Iselinde and Ulvar with their wolves.

Sansa didn’t buy him a gift this year. They stopped that a few years ago. They have everything they need. Instead they help their children make something special. The shirt Jon wears beneath his warm cloak was sewn by Iselinde. Ulvar made him a simple earthenware bowl Sindra filled with the first flowers of spring. And Joarr thundered into the bedroom this morning, when Jon slumbered his second sleep, and sang a song he claimed he composed himself that sounded suspiciously similar to _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ only with different words.

They make sure to spend time together as a family. It’s why Jon wanted to head up here for his fortieth. So they could be together, all of them. Even Bran.

Once, in what feels like someone else's life now, Jon sat alone in the snow and stared up at this very sky painting its canvas pink and emerald, and felt hopelessly and eternally alone. In his dreams he might’ve seen him and Sansa having a pack of their own, but whenever dawn came, those dreams shattered. That happiness was not for him, he knew. He was cursed. Doomed to live out the rest of his life in the shadows.

Now, with the good what ifs surrounding him, and the good kind of warmth a permanence in his heart and his life, Jon looks up at the northern lights and smiles. 

_The end_

* * *

* * *

**Since I’ve told you the origins of Iselinde and Ulvar, here are my reasons behind Joarr and Sindra:**

I decided on Iselinde before I wrote the fic, obviously, but I didn’t settle on the other names until maybe halfway through. I knew I wanted to give Jon and Sansa a reason to choose the names, just like they did with Iselinde, and so I made up three more things to anchor the names in the world. We've already covered Ulvar, of course, so...

 **Joarr** (Jóarr) means horse (jór) and army or warrior (her). He's named for the mere in which he was born, Joardiswater. Dis means goddess. So Joardiswater is in my headcanon (even if it never made it into the fic because I felt that it was a bit much, frankly, and prefer that the meaning of the mere’s name is lost to the world, and Jon and Sansa) a place where once an old horse goddess won a big battle when the mere was iced over. You are ofc free to pronounce it however you want, but if you want to know how I say it, I say Jo-ahr. <https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/J%C3%B3arr>

**Sindra** is inspired by Sindri, which means sparkling. There’s not much more behind that. I knew their youngest would be a mini Sansa in looks, wanted a constellation with a maiden-in-a-tower story, liked the alliteration (Sindra’s Spire) and thought sparkling was a fitting meaning so Sindra it is! [ https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Sindri ](https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Sindri)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I think people who leave supportive, kind comments don’t realize how incredibly important they are. Sometimes I see readers saying their kind words don’t matter, that they don’t matter, and so why would their support do anything at all? That breaks my heart a little bit. You do matter. Your kind words matter. Short comments, long comments, eloquent comments, rambling comments--they all matter. People like you are the reason why people like me keep posting. You’re the reason why I fight through blocks and rough patches when all I want is to give up--which I of course don’t really want; I’m just struggling with motivation for a bunch of different reasons and then I think about you and I have my motivation. Because I have wanted to give up. Several times throughout writing this. At the same time, it’s also been my favorite fic to write. A bit contradictory perhaps but here we are. I want to thank you, everyone of you, who have left kind, supportive comments. I always say I couldn’t have done it without you, but with this fic it’s more true than ever. I want to thank the people who had faith in me, even when things looked bad, and I hope I didn’t disappoint in the end.
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who put up with my whining when things were hard, Reserved Listing and halcyonhowl in particular whose ears I ranted sore. It was very helpful. <3 I want to thank halcyonhowl too for listening when I rambled about my plans and thought out loud to sort my thoughts, and for reading a few chapters before I posted when I felt very insecure. Thank you to dragonflysansa for the wonderful playlist. Thank you to Dena-1984 for the picspams inspired by the fic. I loved them all very much. <3 Thank you to the wonderful people who stuck with me to the end and who kept leaving comments through it all. I do notice you and I’m endlessly grateful and have come to look forward to seeing your names in the notifications in my email. And I’d like to thank people who came in late and commented as they went along. People like you are a treat!
> 
> This is likely to be my last fic. I have no more writing plans. It’s not impossible inspiration randomly strikes some day in the future and I post a one shot or something. I’m not, like, issuing an official statement of retirement lmao. But, in case this is the last, I want to take the opportunity to thank my readers in general. I want to thank the people who’ve stuck with me fic after fic. You’ve all made this an incredible experience. You’ve motivated and inspired me. I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts and sharing your love for these characters and this ship. I wouldn’t have written this much without you. I will miss you very very much. Sometimes a good comment really can make a writer’s day or week or even month. And Jonsa readers are absolutely wonderful readers to have. Thank you again <3


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